Environmental concerns can justify GMO bans!

The organic food and farming movement congratulates the European Parliament for its vote to strengthen national bans on GMOs and urges the Council and Commission to follow suit in the upcoming negotiations. “National GMO bans will only stand challenges if the new directive includes solid legal grounds, such as the environmental grounds included in the Parliament position. Member States must be able to ban GMOs due to the environmental and economic harm caused by their cultivation in their territories, as legally sound bans are the only way to effectively preserve biodiversity and to protect organic and non-GM food and farming from contamination in the long term,” IFOAM EU Director Marco Schlüter states.
 

Eric Gall, IFOAM EU Policy Manager, continues that national governments should not allow GMO cultivation to jeopardize the benefits that organic farming provides to the environment and to the European economy. In the upcoming negotiations, the Commission has to join the Parliament in recognising Member States’ rights and Member States should acknowledge that a lasting solution can only come from bans based on solid legal grounds. More information is available here.