The European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) urged the EU, on Wednesday 27 June not to be “taken in” by the technical language used by the biotechnology industry and to demand detailed information on all techniques used for obtaining, selecting and multiplying before any marketing authorisation is granted for plants, animals and other genetically modified organisms.
Such GMOs may be the result of mutagenesis, but “they all involve other techniques that unquestionably produce regulated GMOs. These techniques include the multiplication of plant cells isolated in vitro in laboratories before they are transformed into new plants or new animals, or the introduction in laboratories of biological material via transgenesis to animal or plant cells to cause genetic modifications”, ECVC states.
This warning has been intentionally launched before the Court of Justice gives its ruling, on 25 July, on the legal status of new GMOs (see EUROPE 11942).
In a press release, the ECVC states: “Putting forth a simple statement that these are not GMOs would lead to the widespread deception of small-scale farmers, consumers and citizens. Small-scale farmers have the right to know, and to refuse or accept, which plants we want them to grow, and which animals we want them to rear. Consumers have the right to know what we want to make them eat and citizens have the right to know what impacts their environment”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)