Save our Seeds

France on Friday rejected a report by the European Union’s food safety watchdog that said a controversial strain of genetically-modified corn was safe. In a joint statement, the French ecology and agriculture ministries said the Italy-based European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had failed to take into account requests to change the way it evaluated the risk. ”The conclusions of the council of European environment ministers must be respected,” the statement said, referring to a December 4, 2008 decision, approved unanimously, that had called on the agency to overhaul its assessment methods.

After a debate on environmental risks related to the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Austria is now calling for an opt-out clause to be introduced to related EU legislation to allow individual member states to decide on cultivation. [...] The delegation argues that ”relevant socio-economic aspects could form a basis for individual member states to prohibit or regulate the cultivation of GMOs on the whole territory, or certain defined areas, of individual member states”.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Eleven European Union countries will call next week for the right to opt-outs for growing genetically modified (GM) crops, to cut through complex EU decision-making and end years of stalemate on biotech policy. The suggestion, to be floated at a meeting of EU environment ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday, would be for governments to restrict cultivation of specific GM crop types if they saw fit.

Germany’s Research Minister, Annette Schavan, and Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner invited thirty representatives from science, industry, politics and associations to discuss the status of agricultural biotechnology in Germany. The churches were also represented. Today’s discussions in Berlin did not produce any concrete results, but further round tables are to be arranged to discuss individual issues.

A forum on the case study on the socio-economic impact of Genetically Modified (GM) Corn or RR Corn in Capiz was held last April 30, 2009 [...] Ms. Eloisa Bosito, MASIPAG-National Secretariat presented & discussed the results of the socio-economic study which shows that almost all of the farmers in both municipalities are dependent with the local financiers in the area, with 57% of the corn farmers in Dumarao are paying an interest of 7% per month. In Maayon, most of the farmers are paying as high as 10% per month.

Sandwiched amid Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the Middle East and President Barack Obama’s commencement address at Notre Dame, a behind-closed-doors ”study week” in Rome sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Sciences on genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, has so far flown largely below radar. Yet the May 15-19 event could help drive the Vatican toward a pro-GMO stance, disappointing some social justice activists, as well as a cross-section of Catholic bishops and theologians, who see genetically altered crops as risks to the environment and human health as well as a boondoggle for giant agribusiness corporations.

Due to insufficient data, it is currently impossible to carry out a final evaluation of the size and distribution of profits in terms of business and economics which have been achieved by cultivating transgenic plants in developing and emerging countries. Studies which claim to be able to do this are not backed up scientifically and are based on unstable projections. Even the case studies from China and Brazil could not improve this situation: The studies published to date on the economic results of Bt cotton cultivation in China are, for instance, based on the data from just a few years and just a few hundred hectares (out of an overall acreage of 5.5 million hectares) and demonstrate enormous fluctuations; for Brazil, no publications at all exist on the cultivation results, only estimations.

Germany’s Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said on Monday she will permit test cultivation of a potato containing genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). Open air trails of the GMO potato Amflora, developed by German chemicals group BASF presented no threat to public health or the environment, she said. Aigner had this month said she would carry out a new review of an application for open-air trial cultivation of Amflora, which was test-cultivated on 150 hectares in 2008.

German Agricultural Minister Ilse Aigner today announced an immediate ban on the cultivation of "Mon 810" the only GM maize variety presently approved for cultivation in the EU. The ban, only days before sowing season starts, follows five other EU member states bans.

On 2 April 2009, the Commission issued a second report on coexistence, outlining the activities of national coexistence measures in the 27 member states. 15 Members States have adopted legislation on coexistence, 11 more than in 2006 when the first coexistence report was published. Another 3 Member States have notified draft legislation to the Commission. The Commission does not intend to prepare harmonised legislation at EU level, but will prepare crop specific guidelines as well as thresholds for seed contamination.