After EU Member States failed to reach the required qualified majority to renew or reject the approval of glyphosate in a second round of voting on 16 November, the European Commission has decided to renew the authorisation, approving its use in EU Member States for ten more years. Following the decision yesterday, the Commission released a statement saying that, on the basis of opinions published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), it will renew the licence, “subject to certain new conditions and restrictions”. The conditions include a ban on the use of the chemical to dry (desiccate) crops before harvest and “the need for certain measures to protect non-target organisms”. Germany's Agriculture Minister has criticised the renewal of glyphosate, saying, "I very much regret this." GMWatch

 

 

GM Bt cotton is failing in India – and African countries should take note of this when considering whether to introduce it themselves, according to a new scientific paper by internationally acknowledged experts. The authors write that the underlying cause for this failure is the high cost of hybrid seed, which forces farmers to plant cotton in low density over a long growing season. This limits yield potential and means that the cotton is afflicted by late-season pests, such as the pink bollworm. Farmers have to buy pesticides, which increases costs, and substandard yields mean that not enough money is recouped from sale of the harvest. The authors caution, "The lessons gained from the ongoing market failure of hybrid Bt cotton in India are of utmost importance to its proposed introduction to Africa where, similar to India, cotton is grown mainly in poor rainfed smallholder family farms." GMWatch

 

 

Seed savers, the GMO-free industry association ENGA, and environmental NGOs have sent a statement to EU agriculture ministers on the dangers of patent applications covering new genomic techniques (new GMOs). They are concerned that the proposed deregulation of new GMOs will potentially cause an influx of patented GM seed, harming farmers' rights to save seed for replanting and restricting breeders' access to germplasm. They write, "We ask you not to push the legislative process towards a new regulation of New Genomic Techniques any further, as long as its impact on the scope of patents on seeds is not fully evaluated and corrected by political decision making. The proposal on NGTs itself and the following process ignores big controversial topics such as patents. The proposed report on the impact of the patenting of plants as part of broader market analysis by 2026 is not sufficient to tackle the issue. This would be too little, too late." ARCHE NOAH and others

 

 

We are at crossroads for the future of our food. The EU is currently negotiating new rules for the seed market. The current rules, introduced in the 1960s, promote seeds that were developed for industrial agriculture. These seeds can be sold together with harmful pesticides and synthetic fertilisers, and grown in monocultures. Now Big Agribusiness is pushing for the rules to go even further, outlawing diversity to make both the seed and our food system even more uniform. What we need is the opposite. We need seed laws that secure our right to healthy, diverse and tasty food, by truly enhancing diversity in farmers’ fields and in gardens, supporting local varieties, and respecting farmer’s rights. Sign the petition to call on EU decision makers to not succumb to industry pressure, but to protect and promote crop diversity as well as farmers’ rights to harvest, use, exchange and sell their own seed! You can sign wherever you are in the world. ARCHE NOAH

 

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