“…Importing biotech crops for feed and food will continue to be regulated as now. Member states would not be allowed to prohibit the import and/or the marketing of authorized biotech products. The current list of authorized biotech crops for feed and food use includes one sugar beet, three soybeans, three rapeseeds, six cotton and 17 corn products. What would change is that once a new biotech crop is authorized for cultivation, member states would be able to ban it across all or part of their country for socioeconomic, ethical and moral reasons other than those included in the health and environmental risk assessment of the EU.”
EU Biotech Policy Debate ContinuesRoss Korves
July 23, 2010 Excerpt:
“In 2009 the EU grew 234,000 acres of the one biotech corn (MON810) authorized in 1998. According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), Spain had 187,900 acres of biotech corn, the Czech Republic 16,000 acres, Portugal 12,600 acres, Romania 8,000 acres, Poland 7,400 acres and Slovakia 2,200 acres. Germany and France had previously grown biotech corn. Romania grew 360,000 acres of biotech soybeans in 2006 before joining the EU in 2007. A biotech starch potato, known as ‘Amflora’, was authorized for cultivation and industrial processing in March 2010. Austria, Luxembourg and Hungary have already notified the Commission they will prohibit its cultivation.” Full article at:
http://www.truthabouttrade.org/news/editorials/trade-policy-analysis/16303-eu…
BASF Applies for Approval of Second GM Starch Potato- Teresa Rush, Farmers Guardian (UK), September 7, 2010 http://www.farmersguardian.comChemical business BASF has applied for approval of its second genetically modified starch potato. The European Commission approved the company’s first GM potato – the Amflora potato – for commercial production of industrial starch in May this year.The Amadea potato, like Amflora, produces pure amylopectin starch. Its agronomic properties and safety have been tested in field trials conducted over a number of years, says BASF, which is expecting to launch the product in 2013/14 after receiving a positive safety assessment by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).Amadea is initially intended to complement Amflora cultivation and will later substitute BASF’s first starch potato. German Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, Rainer Brüderle, helped to harvest the first commercially produced Amflora potatoes in Zepkow in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania last week.Together with BASF chairman Dr Jürgen Hambrecht and Dr Stefan Marcinowski, member of BASF’s board of executive directors responsible for plant biotechnology, the Minister harvested the first tubers of the GM potatoes.Farmers and representatives of the German-based Forum Grüne Vernunft e.V (Forum for Green Common Sense) were also present at the Amflora harvest, says BASF.