GE in the News

Search Our Site

Enter your search keywords:

01/14/08 - France Suspends GE Corn

Excerpted from: http://www.euractiv.com/en/environment/france-suspends-gm-maize-citing-new-scientific-evidence/article-169522

French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on January 11, 2008 that his country would invoke an EU safeguard clause enabling it to suspend the marketing and growth on its territory of a GM crop that has EU-wide authorization.

The crop in question is a variety of maize, MON 810, produced by the US biotech giant Monsanto. The strain contains a gene allowing the maize to defend itself against the corn borer which regularly destroys maize harvests all over Europe. MON 810 has so far been the only genetically modified crop to have market authorization in France, one of Europe's largest maize growers.

The decision came after France's 'Provisional High Authority on GM Organisms' presented, on 9 January 2008, the conclusions of its study on the effect of the MON 810 crop on health and the environment. The committee, composed of 15 scientific experts, announced that it had found "new scientific facts relating to a negative impact on flora and fauna." However, not all its members signed the final declaration, arguing that they did not have enough time to conduct the study.

These new scientific facts include cross-pollination of GM and non-GM fields at local level and negative effects on insects, a species of earthworm and microorganisms.