Save our Seeds

Europe`s leading food safety agency gave the green light on Wednesday for five genetically modified crops and foods that are banned in certain EU countries, saying they posed no risk to human or animal health.</p><p><a href="http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseaction=newsletter&topic_id=6&subtopic_id=33&doc_id=12615">checkbiotech.org</a>

New documents released to Friends of the Earth reveal that the European Commission has been approving genetically modified foods and crops despite having serious doubts over their health and environmental impacts. Both Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have today called for a suspension in the use and sale of all GM foods and crops until the safety issues have been addressed.</p><p><a href="http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2006/joint_18_April_GMOs.htm">Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace: Joint Press Release</a></p><p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4917302.stm">BBC News</a></p><p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/18/ugm.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/04/18/ixportaltop.html">The Daily Telegraph</a>

The European Commission said companies seeking permission to sell gene-modified food in the EU need to do extra risk assessments. In a policy paper, the commission also said the EU`s food agency must work more closely with national scientific bodies to win their support for gene-altered products.</p><p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=a_wFbcN7WTLI&refer=europe">Bloomberg: EU Seeks More Biotech-Food Data</a>

Environment Commissioner Dimas and Consumer and Health Commissioner Kyprianou have listed a set of requests to the European Food Safety Authority`s risk assessment of GMOs, including more details to justify their decisions, assessment of biodiversity impacts and long term effects and more respect for national authorities and scientific submissions. The Commission also announced additional risk management measures for future GMO approvals and reserves the right to suspend approval processes, if "new scientific questions were not properly addressed by EFSA". The announcement reflects massive criticism of the EFSA GMO panels practices by member states and stakeholders. "The commission hears the message that member states want more scientific consistency and transparency," said the spokesman.</p><p><a href="http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/498&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en">EU press release, (E, F, D, Es)</a></p><p><a href="http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2006/2006-04-12-04.asp">ENS: EU Alters GMO Assessments to Satisfy Resistant Member States</a></p><p><a href="archiv/GM%20food%20proposals%20could%20%27politicise%27%20approvals%20process">FoodNavigator: Europabio - proposals could 'politicise' approvals process</a></p><p><a href="http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200604/16fc2211-5b2c-49eb-b786-252c398689bb.htm">Europolitix: EU overhauls GM approval procedures</a></p><p><a href="http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2006/AB_12_April_slaps.htm">Friends of the Earth: European Commission slaps its own food safety bod...as more countries ban biotech crops</a>

While commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, responsible for agriculture, said, effectively, GMOs were here to stay and Europeans should get used to them, Europe`s environment commissioner Stavros Dimas attacked the EU`s food safety agency (EFSA) on Wednesday for flawed risk assessments of genetically modified crops and foods, saying it relied too much on data given by the biotech industry.</p><p><a href="http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35913/story.htm">Reuters: Safety Checks on GMOs Flawed - EU Environment Chief</a></p><p><a href="http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35909/story.htm">Reuters: EU Commissioners Split on Genetically-Modified Food</a></p><p><a href="http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200604/5f7e8291-7bdf-42f5-950d-f825169acf70.htm">europolitix.com: GM debate: Rifts open in the EU executive</a></p><p><a href="http://www.saveourseeds.org/downloads/Fischer_Boel_Coex_210306.pdf">Marianne Fischer-Boel about Coexistence on March 21, 2006</a></p><p><a href="http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/06/224&format=PDF&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en">Speech held by Stavros Dimas at the conference in Vienna</a>

The European Commission Tuesday asked Switzerland`s Syngenta AG (SYNN.VX) for reassurances on its detection method for its genetically modified BT10 maize. The Commission said it has sent a letter to the company after concerns were expressed by the E.U.`s GMO laboratory that it couldn't exclude the possibility that some tests for the presence of the modified maize had shown false negative results.</p><p><a href="http://www.truthabouttrade.org/article.asp?id=5514">Truth about Trade</a>

The spiralling uptake of genetically engineered crops in Spain is causing massive genetic contamination, threatens the livelihood of farmers and urgently needs to be suspended, says Greenpeace. In a new report, 'Impossible Coexistence', environmentalists show how GE crops in Spain - the only EU country that grows genetically modified organisms on a large scale - are undermining agricultural biodiversity and consumer choice.</p><p><a href="http://eu.greenpeace.org/downloads/gmo/impossiblecoexistence060404.pdf">Greenpeace press Release</a>

Genetically modified crops can only be grown in Europe if contamination of organic and conventional foods are permitted, claims Friends of the Earth today in a new publication. The environmental group is scathing of the European Commission who are organizing a conference on the "co-existence" of GM and non GM farming in Vienna as part of the Austrian presidency of the EU. They claim the Commission is only listening to industry whilst ignoring European law and the majority of the public.</p><p><a href="http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/Downloads/FOE_PR_Vienna_030406.pdf">FoE Pressrelease</a>

IBAMA, the enforcement arm of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, issuedan order today (21 March) against Syngenta, fining the company one million reais(386,000 euros) for illegal field trials of GE soy in a buffer zone around theIguacu Falls World Heritage Site. IBAMA made the announcement at the ongoingmeeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity taking place in Curitiba, Brazil. National law in Brazil expressly prohibits the planting of GMOs inconservation areas as well as buffer zones around those areas, based on thePrecautionary Principle. Syngenta`s GE soy field trials were found sixkilometers from the park, however national law requires a buffer zone of atleast ten kilometers.In their legal declaration today, IBAMA confirmed they would maintain a ban onthe planting of soy in this area. Additionally, they levied a fine of onemillion reais against the company, arguing that they considered seriously "the disrespectful attitude of Syngenta towards the Biosafety Law, which results in aserious threat to a protected ecosystem considered human patrimony under federallaw, and which has other consequences not yet clarified that could result in athreat to other crop production, organic production, and human, animal, plantand environmental health." Finally, IBAMA is directing its legal division toimmediately seek judicial authorization to destroy all the GE plants in theexperimental field.</p><p><a href="http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35765/story.htm">Reuters: Syngenta Appeals Brazil Fine, Farm Still Occupied</a></p><p><a href="http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=11652">Dominican Today: Greenpeace reaction to Syngenta fine</a>

The eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP-8) opened in Curitiba, Brazil, today.After more than a decade of planting GM crops in the environment, over 130 Parties of the United Nations Agreement on Genetically Modified Organisms, called the Biosafety Protocol, will meet in Curitiba, Brazil, to take a crucial decision that may significantly affect the current model of development and trade of GM foods around the world.</p><p><a href="http://www.iisd.ca/biodiv/cop8/">Earth Negotiation Bulletin COP8</a></p><p><a href="http://biotech-trade-watch.org/?Vlang=en">Biotech Trade Watch</a></p><p><a href="http://biotech.indymedia.org">biotech.indymedia.org</a></p><p><a href="http://www.foei.org/gmo/biosafety.html">Friends of the Earth</a></p><p><a href="http://www.banterminator.org">Ban Terminator</a></p><p><a href="http://www.saveourseeds.org/downloads/EP_preparation_COPMOP_2006.pdf">European Parliament resolution on preparations for the COP-MOP meetings on biological diversity and biosafety</a>