EU Policy-making Should be on Scientific Evidence of GM Crops

In the light of the recent EU Parliament decision on allowing member states to choose whether to ban the cultivation of genetically-modified (GM) crops on their territory, EuropaBio's Director of Green Biotechnology Europe Carel du Marchie Sarvaas in a press release commented that "The debate reveals very clearly how politicized science has become in European policymaking. If member states can opt-out of a product approval system simply because of political preference, without any scientific reasoning, the result will be more uncertainty and less choice for farmers. It is disappointing to see how such political voting is making Europe into a science museum rather than an economic motor driven by innovation, particularly at a time when the whole world needs to meet the challenge of feeding a growing global population."

The EuropaBio press release also emphasized Park et al's 2011 study showing that EU farmers miss out on the €440-930 million benefits each year by not being able to choose and plant the available GM crops. EuropaBio supports EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso who believes that member states should be free to choose to cultivate GM crops at their own pace and based on scientific evidence of GM crops' safety.

See the press release for more details at http://www.europabio.org/PressReleases/green/EP_Nationalisation_PR.pdf