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Scotland's rural affairs secretary has said that the country will ban the growing of genetically modified crops and opt out of allowing EU-approved GMOs such as MON 810 (corn with an added Bacillus thuringiensis gene):
Richard Lochhead said the Scottish government was not prepared to "gamble" with the future of the country's £14bn food and drink sector. He is to request that Scotland be excluded from any European consents for the cultivation of GM crops. But farming leaders said they were disappointed by the move. Under EU rules, GM crops must be formally authorised before they can be cultivated. An amendment came into force earlier this year which allows member states and devolved administrations to restrict or ban the cultivation of genetically modified organisms within their territory.
[...] Mr Lochhead added: "There is no evidence of significant demand for GM products by Scottish consumers and I am concerned that allowing GM crops to be grown in Scotland would damage our clean and green brand, thereby gambling with the future of our £14bn food and drink sector. Scottish food and drink is valued at home and abroad for its natural, high quality which often attracts a premium price, and I have heard directly from food and drink producers in other countries that are ditching GM because of a consumer backlash."
[...] The move has also been broadly welcomed by environment groups. But Scott Walker, chief executive of farming union NFU Scotland, said he was disappointed that the Scottish government had decided that no GM crops should ever be grown in Scotland. "Other countries are embracing biotechnology where appropriate and we should be open to doing the same here in Scotland," he said. "These crops could have a role in shaping sustainable agriculture at some point and at the same time protecting the environment which we all cherish in Scotland." Huw Jones, professor of molecular genetics at agricultural science group Rothamsted Research, said the announcement was a "sad day for science and a sad day for Scotland. He said that GM crops approved by the EU were "safe for humans, animals and the environment".
The European Parliament voted to give member states the ability to opt-out of allowing the cultivation of EU-approved GMOs in January.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @07:44PM
The first step is a moratorium (a ban will do - it can be rescinded) on GMOs. The second step is dismantling companies like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midlands, separating them into smaller companies that cannot push the government around. This must also include tractable regulations to prevent such companies from reoccurring. The third step is to introduce well controlled GMO research that does not risk screwing up our lives.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 11 2015, @09:10PM
I wish you weren't being a hopeless dreamer.
FWIW, I *believe* that most current GMO plants are safe. But I don't trust either the vendors or the certifying authorities. GMOs are essentially new drugs, and should be treated as such. (Actually, they are often a collection of multiple new drugs, but that merely magnifies the problem.) Additionally, it's worse than a new drug in a way, as you don't only need to be concerned about the effect on people, but also on pollinators, etc. This makes a valid test of them quite difficult. (E.g.: "Who knew that trace amounts of genetic compound X in the water supply would cause all teleosts to be born male?" Nobody even thought to look for such a potential problem. It hasn't happened yet, but SOMETHING is killing off the amphibians by making their immune systems too weak to fight off a fungus. Probably it's a subcritical dose of multiple environmental pollutants that are each present in safe quantities, but which interact in a way that reinforces their destruction of amphibian immune systems.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.