Save our Seeds

The European Union's highest court fined France 10 million euros ($12.9 million) on Tuesday for failing to update the country's laws on genetically modified (GM) crops and foods.

Long-term environmental risk assessment of GMOs should be improved and member states allowed to establish GMO-free zones, EU ministers agreed last week. On 4 December, the bloc’s environment ministers a six-month process launched by the French EU Presidency aimed at overcoming the Council’s inability to take authorisation decisions on new GM products for cultivation in the EU. It is not yet clear whether the conclusions of the exercise will actually help to break the current deadlock.

The leading European potato starch companies AVEBE, Emsland-Stärke, and Lyckeby Industrial demand the use of innovative technologies in agriculture. According to the starch producers, genetically optimized starch potatoes like Amflora from BASF Plant Science are good examples for such innovations. Their request has been prompted by the recent EU Commission decision from November 20, 2008 to cut the subsidies for the production of starch potatoes

EU environment ministers have called for assessing the long-term effects of GMOs on the environment, living organisms and health. They also encourage independent research by scientists on GMOs and access to information that is currently kept secret by agro-biotech companies. Ministers meeting at the Environment Council also urged the European Food Safety Authority, which is at the heart of all decisions taken in the EU on GMOs, to consider the environmental impact of herbicides spread over GM crops. They also said that pesticide-producing GM crops should be treated in the same way as chemical pesticides and recognised the right of regions and local communities to establish GM-free zones.

The European Union has authorized imports of a genetically modified (GM) soybean type for sale across its 27 national markets for the next 10 years, the European Commission said on Thursday. Developed and marketed by Monsanto, the soybean is destined to be imported for use in food and animal feed, not for growing. It is a second-generation GM product known by its code number MON 89788 and commercially as Roundup RReady2Yield.

Consumption of genetically modified corn may lead to infertility, according to a new study commissioned by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, and carried out by Veterinary University Vienna. Results from a long-term feeding study with mice were interpreted as showing that consumption of a genetically modified corn developed by Monsanto (NK603 x MON810) led to lower fertility and body weight.

The Joint Research Centre, the European Union’s scientific and technical research laboratory, released a study on the health impact of GM foods on Thursday. While admitting that ”little is known about the potential long term health effects” of GM foods, it said foods put forward for regulatory approval to date had not had harmful effects. It also said GM crops approved in the EU were not found to have caused allergies such as skin reactions. Robert Sturdy, a member of the European parliament who sits on the environmental and agricultural committees, said the report showed Europe needed to ”move forward” on the GM debate.

The European Commission Monday approved imports of a genetically modified variety of soybean developed by Bayer AG, a move that may help prevent European animal feed shortages in the coming years. Without the approval, E.U. farmers would be effectively blocked from importing soybeans from the U.S., where millions of acres of the new crop, known under the code A2704-12, are expected to be planted next year. Importers would be unlikely to ship soybeans - a crucial source of protein in animal feed - from the U.S. for fear that their cargoes would be contaminated with the biotech soybean.

Germany wants European Union member states to have the power to block genetically-modified crops in their countries, Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer said on Wednesday. Currently the EU Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, takes the decision whether genetically modified organisms (GMO) are safe and has controversially approved several GMO crops for commercial farming. [...] ’I believe that the EU member states should be able to decide themselves whether they actually want cultivation in their areas,’ Seehofer said.

BASF has taken legal action against the European Commission for unjustifiably delaying the approval process for its genetically modified Amflora potato, the German chemicals company said on Thursday. BASF said in a statement it filed the action with the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg after a 12-year process. ”EU commissioners have postponed Amflora’s approval despite repeated positive safety assessments by EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority,” said Stefan Marcinowski, a member of BASF’s executive board.