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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

Should our response to these challenges include genetically modified (GM) crops? Most agricultural scientists say yes. So far the European consumer has said no. For the scientist, GM is an extension of the past 10,000 years of genetic modification by agricultural selection. It is precision engineering as opposed to the blunderbuss of conventional breeding, and has the potential to transform agriculture in regions left out of the green revolution, such as sub-Saharan Africa, by creating crops that are more nutritious, resistant to disease or drought, and can grow without chemical fertilisers. In other words GM could help to produce more and better food with less environmental damage.

According to official statistics, between 2002 and 2006, more than 500,000 hectares were deforested to make way for genetically modified soybeans, Argentina’s main export crop. The advance of monoculture, besides destroying the area’s natural biodiversity, is also undermining the very survival of campesinos who have lived and farmed in the region for generations.

The distinction between a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian might soon get blurred with the introduction of genetically modified crops. Now, imagine tomatoes, which are genetically modified with the gene of a pig. This has sparked a global campaign against genetically modified (GM) foods. Uttar Pradesh, too, has been engulfed in the campaign — ”I am no lab rat”.

THE first genetically-modified canola crop has been delivered into a silo in NSW, Monsanto Australia announced. Parkes farmer Graham Barron, who delivered his Roundup Ready canola crop to a silo at Grenfell this week, said in a statement issued by Monsanto that he was impressed by the results and with the supply chain processes.

US-based biotechnology companies Dow AgriSciences and Monsanto are now eyeing markets for more potent and pest-resistant GM corn after having successfully marketed the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn since 2003. Bt corn has the sole trait of being Asiatic corn-borer resistant. Before even setting foot in other Asian countries, biotechnology companies have already seen opportunities in starting out in the Philippines. The country is internationally recognized for having a more established regulatory policy on biotechnology.

Genetically engineered crops are prohibited in Lake County after a 3-2 vote by the Lake County Board of Supervisors Tuesday. Supervisors Rob Brown and Jeff Smith voted against the ban. The vote came after three and a half hours of discussion. The board took input on both sides of the issue from farmers, business owners and representatives from the Lake County Farm Bureau, Lake County Agricultural Department, Lake County Sierra Club, Lakeport Regional Chamber of Commerce and California Certified Organic Farmers.

EU envrionment ministers continued to disagree on whether member states should be allowed to establish GMO-free zones for sensitive areas, although they did concur on the need for better long-term environmental risk assessment of GMOs. Following a number of informal discussions earlier this summer, the EU-27 environment ministers debated the bloc’s GMO authorisation procedure in a Council meeting on 20 October. But member states clashed on the issues of protecting sensitive and protected territories and establishing GMO-free zones.

Europe’s food safety chief said on Thursday she did not believe there was any need to change the European Union’s ”zero tolerance” policy on unauthorised genetically modified material in food imports. [...] ”My cabinet advises me that there is no need at this point to change the zero tolerance because we have already approved one event, we are in the process of approving a second event.