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EU Blocks France's Ban of Monsanto's GM Maize
redletterdave writes with an update to news from a few months ago that France had banned the growing of Monsanto's genetically modified corn. After reviewing the evidence France submitted in support of the ban, the European Food Safety Authority has now rejected it. An official opinion (PDF) stated that they "could not identify any new science-based evidence indicating that maize MON 810 cultivation in the EU poses a significant and imminent risk to the human and animal health or the environment."
Not because the EU overturned the ban, but because the EU can overrule national decisions in such important matters, and a vast majority of other matters in almost all aspects of life.
French authorities may or may not be right about not trusting Monsanto's GMOs, I am not qualified to have an opinion on the subject, but what I see here is that, in effect, they only have a consulting role since a another body in Brussels disagreed and decided otherwise. That's what you get when you relinquish your national sovereignty to a half-assed de-facto federal government that doesn't speak its name.
It's the same for the ability to lower certain taxes, doing protectionism, devaluing the currency they no longer have control of, and a whole slew of important and less important things that define an independent nation. EU member states don't have any real say over these things anymore. That's why I'm amazed to see people in the streets of France celebrate the election of their new prez, hoping for a brighter future with him, when in reality he's just a figurehead with almost no power to do anything meaningful.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
No, they sue people for deliberately selecting the seeds to use by spraying them with glyphosate (at least, in the most marketed case).
Somehow, the media is hooked onto the theory that GM modified crops will make us all Zombies.
That is not the problem. I really doubt that these modifications will create crops which will cause health problems.
The actual problem is licensing and economics.
A seed is a thing which cannot be contained. If you neighbor has a crop, seeds will come to you farm.
If its a resilient crop, it may dominate too.
And then they lawyers come with their army, and drag you to court. How many small farmers can afford to fight.
Yes, there will be farmers who will willfully cheat, but right now the licensing model, and the law does not recognize this difference.
To be frank, GM crops can actually help coping with food shortage, but the licensing model has made something which is a boon, a bane.
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Yes, there is no shortage of french people ready to go burn GM crop fields. And jailing them pushes the issue into the political field. Add to that the new socialist government who's allied with the green party ; I don't see a bright future for Monsanto GM crops in France.
Do you stop the sale of all new foods for 90 years? Where is the cutoff?
The cutoff is when you've done enough rigorous and open testing that nobody in the professional scientific community can raise any particular concerns.
Look, any time you introduce a new element into an ecosystem there WILL be impact of one sort or another. The people producing the GMO's have, for example, claimed there is no risk of their product escaping into other fields, which has been proven false over and over. Each time it happens, these assholes sue the farmers whose crops get contaminated for "illegally" using their patented product. That alone should have been enough to warrant a ban, cancer or not.
Then we have some very recent evidence that the rash of Colony Collapse Disorder among honey bee populations is being caused by a somewhat new pesticide. This just so happens to be the same pesticide which is integrated into the Monsanto corn, and preliminary tests indicate it DOES affect bee populations. While there isn't enough evidence to prove it yet, it's enough evidence to be very worrying. Especially when viewed in light of the other claims Monsanto has made about their product and have been shown to be false.
There just hasn't been enough testing of these products. What little testing has been done, is either not transparent enough or has to be done without their cooperation making it even more difficult. The judge should not have blocked this ban, if France doesn't want the product they shouldn't be forced to accept it.
"They created life that cannot reproduce, so that farmers have to come to them each year to buy new seeds." Actually they didn't the Agriculture department and two private companies did. Monsanto bought the two private companies in 2005 acquiring the rights but they didn't create the genes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology
Third world economies desperately need to transition from subsitence farming to producing cash crops. I'm no fan of Monsanto, but their actions will ultimately be beneficial.
Because Monsanto has been so successful in India and South America, right? There's a few documentaries on the subject, and I'm pretty sure they're on netflix. Monsanto really is one of the greatest evils in the world today, threatening human life far more seriously than any Muslim terrorist.