Save our Seeds

A maize shipment to the Netherlands that Greenpeace said contained illegal genetically modified grain must be returned to the United States if testing confirmed this, the European Union said on Monday. A European Commission spokesman said the European Food Safety Authority had found that the type of genetically engineered maize Greenpeace said was in the shipment was not a health threat, but it had yet to be approved for use in the EU. ”It is still unlawful at the moment,” Michael Mann said.

On 3 May 2007 ETC Group together with ”No Patents on Life!” and Greenpeace will continue a 13-year legal battle against one of biotech’s most notorious patents. At an appeal hearing at the European Patent Office i

n Munich, civil society organizations will argue that Monsanto’s patent (European Patent No. 301-749) on all genetically engineered soybeans - unprecedented in its broad scope - must be revoked. ”No patent symbolizes the brokenness of the patent system better than Monsanto’s species-wide patent on genetically engineered soybeans,” said Hope Shand of ETC Group. ”Monsanto’s patent is both technically flawed and morally unacceptable,” said Shand.

Animal feed containing unauthorised GM in rice protein has been imported into the UK via the Netherlands. This came to the Agency’s attention via an alert (RASSF) issued by the European Commission on 22 March 2007, following investigations in Cyprus that showed that the GM line Bt63 had been found in rice protein concentrate imported from China via the Netherlands. This GM line has not been authorised in the EU.

The United States Trade Representative has formally told the European Union that it is interested in continuing an effort aimed at ensuring a normalization of biotechnology trade in the wake of a ruling by the World Trade Organization that the EU’s approval process for genetically modified organisms has run afoul of the procedures that guide sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and that member state bans on products previously approved in the EU violate the WTO.

EU biotech experts failed on Thursday to agree on approving an application for genetically modified (GMO) sugar beet, again exposing the bloc’s deep-seated rift on biotech foods, the European Commission said on Thursday. The sugar beet, called H7-1, was developed jointly by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto and German plant breeding company KWS SAAT AG to resist glyphosate-containing herbicides.

Europe’s farmers will not see any more clarity on EU rules for separating traditional, organic and biotech crops until at least 2009 as experts sift through scientific data on specific plant varieties, officials say. The European Commission, the EU executive, issued guidelines in July 2003 on how farmers should separate the three types. The idea was for national governments to make their own laws to facilitate growing of genetically modified (GMO) crops if farmers wanted to do so. At the moment, maize is the only GMO crop that is grown on the territory of the EU-27.

Brazil’s biotechnology council postponed its decision on Bayer AG’s gene-modified corn seeds until next month. The council finished voting on issues related to research during meetings yesterday and today, and delayed its vote on commercial seeds until May 16-17, spokeswoman Rachel Mortari said. The council had a backlog of issues to consider because last month’s meeting was canceled after Greenpeace International protesters stormed the closed-door session.

A muddle over Romania’s genetically modified (GM) soy crops and its January accession to the EU will leave everyone, except perhaps the environmental lobby, a little poorer. Failure by the Romanian government during its EU membership talks to get approval to cultivate GM soy means that Romanian farmers who invested heavily in this crop stand to lose everything, Romania will give up the head-start it had in Europe in growing the crop, and Europe will be forced to continue importing the €1.6bn worth of GM soy for human and animal feed it needs each year from growers outside the EU, such as the US, Argentina and Brazil.

The European Commission intends to promote genetically modified (GM) crops in Europe, even though it admits that that the European public does not want to eat GM foods. The Commission"s mid-term review of the EU"s Biotech Strategy today called for increased financial and political support for biotechnology applications - including GM crops - while acknowledging the poor performance of the GM crop sector and its widespread public opposition.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative plans to decide in about two weeks whether to continue dispute-settlement discussions with the European Union over its failure to lift its de facto moratorium on the sale of U.S. biotechnology products, a U.S. trade official said April 2. Discussions with the EU over the issue were held at the end of February, the official said, ”to assess the seriousness of their intentions” to normalize trade.