1. ANTI-GM MILITANTS PULL UP GENETICALLY MODIFIED MAIZE
2. Jose Bove sends out a call to farms
3. French agency finds GMO traces in regular crops
4. Paris, Berlin seek to put EU farm focus on quality
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1. ANTI-GM MILITANTS PULL UP GENETICALLY MODIFIED MAIZE
Abstracted from La Tribune in French, La Tribune July 30, 2001
About forty anti-GM militants met on Saturday afternoon in Chasne-sur-Illet, 20km from Rennes, France, to pull up a 62 square metre plot of genetically modified maize planted experimentally by Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceuticals group. Amongst the demonstrators were members of militant farmers' group Confederation Paysanne, the Greens, and local residents.
Chasne-sur-Illet councillors have adopted a resolution refusing the presence of GM crops in their commune, but the prefect of Ille-et-Vilaine has pointed out that they do not have the authority to do this. Abstracted from La Tribune
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2. Jose Bove sends out a call to farms
sorry about any inaccuracies in the translation! gen
http://www.lemonde.fr/rech_art/0,5987,211112,00.html
José Bové calls for the destruction of the field tests of GMO's in France. The spokesman of the Confederation Paysanne, José Bové, called for " civil disobedience" if France does not go ahead with the destruction of the transgenic experimental tests in its territory.
" We have made the decision that, if these tests are not destroyed by the 12th August by the public authorities, we will invite the general public to join us to destroy them ", it was declared in a statement. The position of Confederation Paysanne was announced after the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA) recognised, Wednesday 25 July, the existence of 'advantageous' GE pollution in the environment (Le Monde 26 juillet). If José Bové takes part in the action, it means a 10 month prison sentence for him, the suspended sentence from the court case following his participation in the destruction of a GE trial in a greenhouse of Cirad (Center of international co-operation in agronomic research development) in June 1999. " When the collective good is threatened by private interests," he told Le Monde "it is necessary to take individual risks."
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3. French agency finds GMO traces in regular crops
Reuters
http://www.cas.org/reuters/ChemicalCompounds/07_25_2001.reulb-story-bcfoodfrancegmos.html
July 25, 2001
PARIS, July 25 (Reuters) - French food safety agency AFSSA said on Wednesday it had found traces of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in several conventional crops in France but played down health risks to consumers. GMOs can currently only be produced at experimental level in France and GMO-based crops cannot be grown commercially. "A random presence of GMOs traces in a not unsubstantial proportion of conventional seeds and crops seems to be a reality," AFSSA said in an opinion requested by the government that was released Wednesday.
The agency said it had discovered presence of 35S marker -- a little stretch of genetic material used in most GMOs -- in 19 out 112 samples of rapeseed, soy and maize seeds analysed. For maize samples, the contamination level reached 41 percent, it said. AFSSA also said testing methods only detected quantities of GMOs exceeding 0.1 percent, meaning it ``could not exclude the presence of other GMOs at weaker levels.''
LITTLE RISK FOR CONSUMERS
But the agency stressed that there was only "extremely low" risk that exposure to products made of these contaminated seeds could be harmful to consumers. "To our knowledge, there is no element to suggest a risk for public health, notably because of the small amount observed in the (seeds) lots tested," the AFSSA said. "The probability that these would have a toxic or allergic effect seems extremely weak," it added. AFSSA, which was answering a request by the ministries of agriculture, health, consumers and environment, said the GMOs found in conventional seeds could have come from scientific GMO experiments carried out in France or from imported GM seeds.
A STAB IN THE BACK
Environmment campaign group Greenpeace called the results disturbing and said the government shared blame for the seeds and crops contamination. "Neither the government nor the seeds industry makes the necessary efforts to prevent the food chain being contaminated (by GMOs)," Eric Gall, Greenpeace GMO expert, said in a statement. "This irresponsible attitude is a stab in the back for farmers, consumers and agribusiness professionals who took measures to avoid the presence of GMOs in their production." Greenpeace called on the government to destroy all seeds and fields where GMOs had been found to limit the scale of contamination.
GMO crops are commonplace in the United States but France and other European Union members remain highly reluctant to sanction new genetic technology in agriculture. French maize producers, faced with consumer opposition to GMOs, have abandoned growing genetically modified maize although certain varieties had previously been permitted in the country. Most agribusiness firms have followed this path, pressured by consumers and environment associations, especially Greenpeace which published a "black list" of goods containing GMOs. But France still counts around hundred sites of experimental GM crops, a list of which has been published on the farm ministry's website, www.agriculture.gouv.fr.
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4. Paris, Berlin seek to put EU farm focus on quality
By Sybille de La Hamaide PARIS, July 30 (Reuters) - [shortened]
The farm ministers of France and Germany joined forces on Monday to call for a quick review of the European Union's farm policy, saying that the 15-country bloc must rapidly switch its focus from quantity to quality. In a joint article written for Le Monde newspaper, Jean Glavany and Renate Kuenast said they did not want to push for a full renegotiation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) but stressed the need to redirect the 40-year-old system. "We both have stressed the need to switch from a policy based on quantity to a policy based on quality...This reorientation cannot wait," Glavany and Kuenast wrote. "However, there is no question for rushing into a total overhaul of the CAP," they added. A review of the EU farm regime -- which eats up roughly half the bloc's 90-billion-euro ($83.88 billion) annual budget -- is planned in 2002 or 2003 as part of the so-called Agenda 2000 reforms which last until 2006.
Glavany and Kuenast said there was an urgent need to improve producer and consumer relations after the mad cow and foot-and-mouth scares. The main idea would be to establish a common EU labelling system to enhance traceability through the food chain. "We will address consumers' expectations...only when we have a labelling system which allows flawless treaceability in the production chain," they wrote. Such a system could be launched quickly as it would not need supplementary EU budget money, though they conceded there would be a cost for producers. PUSH FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT Glavany and Kuenast also stressed the need to promote rural development. They want other EU members to adopt the so-called modulation plan applied in Paris and Berlin -- which involves taking some of the subsidies destined directly from Brussels to big farms and diverting them to smaller, more environmentally friendly operations. "We want to go further and make modulation...compulsory at EU level," they wrote. The two ministers also said they favoured introducing a plan to help the oilseeds sector and reduce the EU's dependence on imports, saying such imports were often genetically modified. In an effort to halt the spread of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the European Union suspended the use of meat-and-bone meal in early 2001. The move prompted an increase in demand for soymeal and other sources of vegetable protein, much of it from Latin America and the United States.
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"Public consent is the big thing that is missing. The last thing we want is a public uprising with demonstrations all over the country." - UK government minister http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/scotland.cfm?id=93438&keyword=the
"People must have a voice, and if they're not given a voice they will take it, and I support that, because for me the right of people to participate in what's going on in their country is paramount." http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/dateline_set.html