Save our Seeds

EU opens the market for six genetically modified (GM) maize varieties to market to Europe’s livestock farmers. The approvals are valid for 10 years and cover imports for food and animal feed, but the maize is not authorised for cultivation in Europe.

Science does not serve public interest, but the success of GM technology. "PR strategy relies on seemingly independent scientists making empty promises about the future benefits of GM crops," said Helen Wallace, of GeneWatch UK. Critics claim the trial, the results of which are likely to be used to "sell" GM technology to the British public, is a waste of money because blight-resistant potatoes have already been produced through other techniques.

Together with the main Swiss farmers organisations SWISSAID organised an international seeds caravane through Switzerland. Farmers and seed experts from India, Niger, Guinee-Bissau and Nicaragua participated at this 10days long caravane, focussing on the need of diverse, decentralised and locally adapted, GE-free breeding and the issue of seeds diversity in agriculture.

Read there final declaration of the Participants of the International Seeds Caravan through Switzerland...

Greenpeace identified the illegal Monsanto maize type, MON810 in northern Italy. Activists from Italy, Austria, Germany and Hungary intervened to prevent the spread of GM pollen. “For days these crops will have been contaminating not only neighbouring fields, but countryside further away as well, as insects and winds disseminate their pollen,” said Federica Ferrario, Greenpeace Italy Agriculture campaigner.

The agricultural minister in the German State of Mecklenburg Vorpommern (MV) called on Ilse Aigner the German agricultural Minister to urgently reconsider the cultivation of the gm-potato amflora. “The gm-potato endangers the only ‘healthy region’ for the production of seed potatoes because Amflora is characterized by a high risk of virus infestation” said Till Backhaus. Indeed MV and Scottland are the only remaining regions in Europe ensuring no virus transmission via lice. These healthy regions are essential for breeding and production of healthy seed potatoes and are threatened by susceptible to deceases.

On 3rd June 2010, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (DAFF) informed the EPA of the unauthorised release of GM (genetically modified) event NK603 in conventional maize variety PR39T83. This release was subsequently confirmed by DAFF on 19th July 2010. The maize variety was supplied by Pioneer Hi-Bred Northern Europe and was in the process of being evaluated for cultivation and use under Irish farming conditions in DAFF small scale field trials.

Eric Holt Giminez reports from the first meeting of the UN High Level Task Force on the global food security crisis to hear civil society comments on its Comprehensive Framework for Action to end hunger (CFA). An open dialogue in Dublin, which is however unlikely to change the path of the World Banks 20 billion $ Global Agriculture and Food Security Program.

Within the EU, the option of establishing labelling thresholds for the adventitious presence of genetically engineered organisms in conventional and organic seed has been under discussion for several years. [...] To contribute to the debate, the IFOAM EU Group has launched a study on the economic impacts of different labelling thresholds.

Genetic engineering is a technology in search of a problem; a product in search of a market. This should be foremost in the minds of civil society leaders, farmers and politicians attending the ”Innovation and partnerships to realise Africa’s rice potential” conference in Mali this week. Lobbyists from the genetic engineering (GE) industry are offering Africa a stark choice between hunger and GE crops. This is a false choice. Hunger can be avoided without growing and eating GE crops.

However, it emerged that two of the 21 EFSA scientists did not share their colleagues’ favourable view of Amflora, saying the possibility of its antibiotic-resistant genes being transferred to bacteria in human or animal gastro-intestinal tracts could not be ruled out; if this happened, it would become more difficult to treat infections such as tuberculosis. The EFSA’s scientific panel assessing GM products has been chaired since 2003 by Dr Harry Kuiper, a Dutch biochemist who previously co-ordinated a research programme involving three leading biotech firms – Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta.