EU Green Parties release letter denouncing safety of CRISPR and other New Breeding Techniques', calls for restrictive …

Source: EU Green Parties release letter denouncing safety of CRISPR and other New Breeding Techniques', calls for restrictive …

The EU Court of Justice will soon publish its ruling concerning the legal statute of a group of biotechnologies, which have been called “new plant breeding techniques” by the industry.

The ECJ will decide if these techniques produce GMOs – as the Greens/EFA and many environmental NGOs have been arguing for years – and if some of these will be exempt from proper assessment, traceability and labelling as if they weren’t GMOs.

As Greens, we are opposed to these GMOs being put in our fields and food, as they are dangerous for the environment and do not serve in any way the public interests.

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GMOs are by definition leading to large-scale monoculture and industrial animal farming. These are at the root of many problems of the food and farming system: pollutions by effluents and pesticides; quick decrease of the number of farms and farmers; low prices for agricultural produce; nutritional problems; quick appearance of new pathologies; animal suffering; global warming; depletion of soil resources; ecosystems collapse (with notably a steep decrease of the number of insects and birds) etc.

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Innovation is about the ground-breaking reorganisation of the food distribution system, spreading low-input agriculture, supporting the participative breeding of locally adapted varieties and connecting ancient varieties with modern knowledge about ecosystems. It is about farming that respects animals’ needs and agro-ecology at large. We need numerous, well-remunerated, autonomous farmers.

Read full, original article: ‘New GMOs’ are not progress, but another tool of industrial farming

Published at Mon, 25 Jun 2018 11:28:06 +0000