cultivation

Who thought that it would be the easiest to ban GM maize, where it's not grown anyway, now luckily can admit that they were wrong: Romenia - the biggest maize producer in the EU - just decided to ban the cultivation of MON810. Reasons are not primarily the financial an ecological costs of Monsanto's crop, but the understanding that more money could be earned by growing organic maize.

On 6 March, BASF announced that there would be no commercial cultivation of the GM potatoe Amflora - while a few weeks ago the company with acting as if getting the required aproval for planting was immanent.

On Monday in the meeting of agricultural ministers, Germany voted against a cultivation approval for the GM starch potato Amflora.
Rumour now has it that Germany is also willing to enforce the safeguard clause 23 against its cultivation in Germany if the EU Commission now gives its approval.

The good news is that yesterday, the EU Agricultural Minister meeting failed to give approval for the cultivation of BASF's GM starch potato Amflora. 10 years along the line of the de-facto moratorium against GM crops and still there is no new approval given for cultivation. The bad news is that once again, there was no qualified majority to reject it and the decision now lies with the EU Commission who is likely to approve of it.

Just two weeks ago, the EU environmental ministers postponed their decision on the cultivation of BASF's GM starch potato Amflora. Instead the decision has now been put on the agenda of the agricultural ministers this coming Monday. It appears that the EU Commission is determined to get this GM potato approved, and also to get the first cultivation approval since 1998 and the moratorium.

German authorities stopped the sales of Monsanto's GM maize MON810 till Monsanto submits a new monitoring plan for environmental effects because of new scientific knowledge that MON810 has bigger adverse effects on the environment then expected.
However, because the decision was only taken shortly after the maize sowings, the cultivation of MON810 maize will probably not affected this year. Nevertheless, the decision is important for the further assessment of MON810 in the EU. (Notification in German and English)