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The Clean Food Movement, which is made up of 21 NGOs, today requested that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat declare Malta a GMO free zone.

The Movement is also requesting the newly elected MEPs to encourage the rest of the European Parliament to do the same in Europe.

During a protest held in Valletta, the Clean Food Movement said that to this very day, Malta lacks an accredited laboratory to carry out tests on food for chemical residues and GMOs that can be presented as evidence in Court.

The biotechnology industry has found another use for pesticide-resistant gene technology by putting it in grass seeds, and in the process, completely avoided federal regulation of this new genetically engineered (GE) product.

WAILUKU » Activists have handed in more than 9,000 additional signatures to the Maui County Clerk's office in support of a moratorium on growing or testing genetically modified foods. The new signature submission comes after more than half of the signatures the group turned in last month were found to be invalid. The citizens' initiative must have valid signatures of 8,465 registered Maui County voters to appear on the Nov. 4 general election ballot. Sustainable Hawaiian Agriculture for the Keiki and the Aina Movement earlier gathered 4,720 valid signatures, The Maui News reported. The initiative needs another 3,745 to go forward this year. The initiative seeks to ban genetically modified organisms in Maui County.

Brussels – Responding to reports that most member states endorsed today a Greek presidency proposal on how countries could ban the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops in their territory, Greenpeace warns that this deal is riddled with legal holes.

Most importantly, it does not address health and environmental risks posed by GM crops. Moreover, biotech companies would be given an official role in the banning process, further increasing their influence over the European Commission and national governments.

Greenpeace EU agriculture policy director Marco Contiero said: “It looks like EU countries are falling for a Trojan horse. What the European Commission wanted to achieve through this draft law is to speed up EU approvals of GM crops -despite the fact that the European public is opposed to them. Today’s deal would do very little to help those countries who want to say ‘no’ to GM.”

Farmer had claimed that genetically modified canola had drifted onto his property, losing him his certification.

A farmer growing organic canola in western Australian lost his bid to claim damages from a neighbor after genetically modified (GMO) canola seed heads blew on to his property, causing him to lose his licence as an organic grower. The Supreme Court of Western Australia ruled on Wednesday against organic farmer Steve Marsh, who sued his former friend Michael Baxter after winds carried harvested seed from Baxter's Monsanto Roundup Ready canola crop on to Marsh's farm.

Brussels, May 27, 2014 – A new GM law being discussed in Brussels this week could grant biotech companies, like Monsanto and Syngenta, unprecedented power over decisions on whether to ban genetically modified (GM) crops in Europe, according to Friends of the Earth Europe.

The new law is being promoted as a way to give governments more sovereignty over decisions on whether to ban GM crops. However, the current proposals give biotech companies the legal right to decide whether a ban should be allowed. If companies refuse, governments are forced to fall back on vague, non-scientific legal grounds upon which to ban GM crops, opening the door to legal challenges.

The European debate on the authorization for cultivating Pioneer 1507 corn has raised fears in the youngest country of the Union, where all regions have declared themselves "GMO free".

It is the youngest country of the European Union – a little over four million inhabitants – and elects only eleven MEPs. Yet, Croatia, with its 2.6 million hectares of arable land, could become the Europe's wheat belt. "We have almost a million hectares of fallow land, ready for organic production, which must be defended against GMOs", explains Katica Knezović of the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the University of Zagreb.

The entire country of Mexico should be declared a “center of origin” for maize, with no permitted GM cultivation. (.....) Studies have found the presence of transgenes in native maize in nearly half of Mexico’s states. A study of maize diversity within the confines of Mexico’s sprawling capital city revealed transgenic maize in 70 percent of the samples from the area of Xochimilco and 49 percent of those from Tlalpan.

Mexico is the “center of origin” where maize was first domesticated from its wild ancestor, teocinte. The country is arguably the last place you’d want to risk the possibility that its wide array of native seeds might be undermined by what indigenous people have called “genetic pollution” from GM maize. (.....) ”If the seeds of maize are sold or exchanged, the contamination will grow exponentially,” he warned. “That is the point of no return.”

Despite the flood of corporate money poured into two small Oregon counties, local residents voted on Tuesday to ban genetically engineered crops from being planted within their borders. Although Jackson County itself is home to less than 120,000 registered voters, the measure to ban genetically modified crops (GMOs) made headlines around the nation when it was revealed that large biotech companies like Monsanto were pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the area in order to affect the vote’s outcome. As RT reported previously, Monsanto and five other corporations spent at least $455,000 in an attempt to defeat the initiative, and opponents of the GMO ban had gained an eight-to-one spending advantage as of April. According to the Associated Press, nearly $1 million of the $1.3 million spent during the campaign was used by opponents. When the results were tallied, however, 66 percent of Jackson County residents voted in favor of the ban.

The High Court has quashed a decision by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) that would have allowed developers of genetically modified crops to bypass New Zealand’s GM laws. The Court found the EPA misinterpreted the law when it decided that GMOs from two new breeding techniques could go into New Zealand fields without any formal consultation or assessment of the impacts. The EPA was also criticised for failing to act cautiously in the face of uncertainty. This was not a routine approval for a minor field trial. This was the EPA putting new methods for making GMOs beyond the law without having properly understood that law or properly investigating the consequences. The decision placed New Zealand at risk of losing overnight its status as a GM Free food producer without a public process to assess what would be lost.