18/January/21

 

Luxembourg is the only EU country to have banned glyphosate, with the ban taking effect on 1 January 2021. But more than 60% of the country's farms had already given up glyphosate on their own and the country's main farmers union is not going to fight the ban. RTL Today

 

 

In addition to phasing out glyphosate and GMO corn for cultivation, Mexico has new decided to reduce its dependence on imports of GMO corn for animal feed from the US. It will increase its planting of non-GMO corn and stimulate the reconversion to other types of feed. Explica

 

 

The EU Commission looks set to press ahead with a “new approach” to GM crop authorisations in the wake of lack of political support for the technology in the European Parliament. In December, MEPs voted for five objections against authorisations of GM crops for use as food and feed, bringing the number of objections to 51 in five years. In response to criticism from the Parliament over GMO authorisations, a Commission spokesperson said the executive is “reflecting on a new approach... aligned to the political ambition set by the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy". The spokesperson added that this would "ensure that products placed on the EU market become increasingly sustainable". But Tilly Metz from the Greens/EFA Group said the Commission continues to authorise GM crops whose "cultivation causes environmental devastation in the producer countries, including the destruction of rainforests. It has promised to screen GM crops for their environmental impacts but nothing is happening so far". She said this makes the EU “complicit in deforestation”. Euractiv.com

 

 

A four-year project funded by the Norwegian Research Council will look at "how gene editing could change how we think about food". Two ethicists involved in the project say that while they believe gene editing may have promise for addressing agricultural challenges, they don't believe that an ethical analysis based just on whether gene-edited organisms contain genes from other species, and thus cross species lines, is adequate. The molecular biologist Ricarda Steinbrecher is quoted as saying: “Whether or not the DNA sequences come from closely related species is irrelevant, the process of genetic engineering is the same, involving the same risks and unpredictabilities, as with transgenesis.” The ethicists say objections against GMOs go far beyond safety, to include food sovereignty, farmer choice, excess corporate power, economic security and other concerns. The Conversation