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News that Northern Ireland will follow Scotland in banning GM crops under new EU rules has been welcomed by the SNP. Northern Ireland’s Environment Minister, Mark Durkan, has taken the decision to ban the cultivation of GM crops citing the need to protect the environment and Northern Ireland’s green reputation.

This follows the decision last week of France and last month of Germany, to use the same EU rules to ban GM crops. The Scottish Government took the decision in August to restate its precautionary approach to the cultivation of GM crops in Scotland to protect Scotland’s clean, green status.

The Russian government will ban production of goods using genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich was quoted as saying Friday.

It's been 20 years since genetically engineered (GE; also called genetically modified or GM) crops and foods were first introduced into Canada.

Only 4 GE crops are currently grown in Canada:

canola

corn

soy

sugar beet (white sugar beet for sugar processing)

These 4 crops end up on our grocery store shelves as processed food ingredients and are also widely used for animal feed and to make biofuels. These crops are engineered to be either insect resistant or herbicide tolerant, and many now carry both traits.

We could also be importing a small amount of:

5. GE papaya (from Hawaii)

6. GE squash - some varieties of yellow crookneck squash (from the US)

7. GE cottonseed oil

8. milk products from the US made with the use of recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone

The European Food Safety Authority is to publish its conclusions on glyphosate use in the next few months and will take into account the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) study on the active ingredient, The Malta Independent on Sunday has learnt.

The IARC is a branch of the World Health Organisation.

The EFSA plays a key role in the peer review of the pesticide risk assessment. According to Maltese MEP Roberta Metsola, who confirmed with this newsroom that EFSA is looking into a possible renewal of this active substance, the European Commission will only take a stand on this issue when EFSA completes its review on IARC’s assessment.

Sales of the herbicide produced by Monsanto must stop in December if not given re-authorisation. The Commission proposed to extend marketing to June of next year.

France is to use a new European opt-out scheme to ensure a ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops in the country remains in place, it said on Thursday.

The European Union's largest grain grower and exporter has asked the European Commission for France to be excluded from some GM maize crop cultivation under the new scheme, the farm and environment ministries said in a joint statement.

As part of the opt-out process, France also passed legislation in the National Assembly that would enable it to oppose the cultivation of GM crops, even if approved at EU level, on the basis of certain criteria including environment and farm policy, land use, economicimpact or civil order, the environment ministry added.

Widely grown in the Americas and Asia, GM crops have divided opinion in Europe. France had already banned cultivation of U.S. group Monsanto's GM maize, saying it had serious doubts that it is safe for the environment.

Vote against taking glyphosate off the market “disgraceful”

A small majority of the European Parliament's Environment and Public Health (ENVI) committee on 15 September blocked a proposal by GUE/NGL to take glyphosate off the market by the end of 2015.

The GUE/NGL had drafted and proposed, together with other MEPs from across the Parliament, an objection based on Rule 106 on the ' Extension of the approval period of the active substance glyphosate.' The outcome of the vote, which was a nominal vote, was disappointing and surprisingly, some members of the Parliament's Green group were among the blocking majority.

Appeal Board rejects GM potatoes for South Africa

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) welcomes the recent decision made by the Minister of Agriculture, Water Affairs and Fisheries and an Appeal Board rejecting the commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) potatoes in South Africa.

The ACB with the support of the South African public, vigorously campaigned over a number of years against the Agricultural Research Council (ARC’s) bid to bring GM potatoes, also known as “SpuntaG2,” to the South African market. The potatoes were genetically engineered to produce a toxin to kill the potato tuber moth. The ACB has always contended that the GM potato posed unacceptable risks to human and animal health, the environment and the farming community. GM Regulators in SA, the Executive Council: GMO Act, agreed and rejected ARC’s application in 2009, citing a long list of biosafety, health and socio-economic concerns. These were challenged by the ARC in an appeal, which they have now definitively lost.

A key committee in the European Parliament rejected a proposal today from Green party members to halt an extension in use of the world’s most popular weedkiller.

The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety voted against the objection raised by ENVI Rapporteur Kateřina Konečná, a member of the Nordic Green Left party, who tried to block extension of glyphosate. The herbicide created by Monsanto is best known by the brand name Roundup.

The motion was rejected with 25 votes in favor, 32 against, 10 abstentions.

Sales of the herbicide, which is contained in 750 products, must stop in December if not given re-authorization. The Commission proposes to extend marketing to June of next year.

The food industry in Hawke's Bay was ready to party last night after confirmation the Hastings District Council has become the first local body in New Zealand to block genetically modified food production.

Industry leader John Bostock showed all the enthusiasm of a province winning the Ranfurly Shield when he said last night: "We are so excited. It's a wonderful thing."

The ban comes in new Hastings District Plan rules, prohibiting release and field trials of GM crops and animals in the council area. Mr Bostock says food producers in the area can now brand their products as grown in a GM-free food producing area.

He and others who formed the campaign lobby Pure Hawke's Bay have been fighting for at least 15 years "because it will bring huge benefits to Hawke's Bay".

Food production is being driven more and more by the "clean, green and pure" image, he said.

A French court upheld on Thursday a 2012 ruling in which Monsanto was found to be liable in the chemical poisoning of a French farmer, who says he suffered neurological problems after inhaling the U.S. company's Lasso weedkiller.

The decision by an appeal court in Lyon, southeast France, confirmed the initial judgment, the first such case heard in court in France, that ruled Monsanto was "responsible" for the intoxication and ordered the company to "fully compensate" grain grower Paul Francois.

Monsanto's lawyer said the U.S. biotech company would now take the case to France's highest appeal court.

Francois, who says he suffered memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso in 2004, blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate warnings on the product label.