EU May Order France To Overturn Monsanto Ban

The European Union’s food safety body, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), said on Monday that it would consider forcing France to lift its ban on a Monsanto strain of genetically modified maize, after ruling that there was no “specific scientific evidence” to the strain’s impact on health or the environment.

In 2008, France banned the MON 810 strain of maize following public protests against the crop; though this decision was eventually overturned by a French court in 2011.

The European Union’s food safety body, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), said on Monday that it would consider forcing France to lift its ban on a Monsanto strain of genetically modified maize, after ruling that there was no “specific scientific evidence” to the strain’s impact on health or the environment.

In 2008, France banned the MON 810 strain of maize following public protests against the crop; though this decision was eventually overturned by a French court in 2011.

In March this year however, the French government chose to reinforce the ban once again – as then agricultural minister Bruno Le Maire described the move as one that was essential “to protect the environment”.

Still, the EFSA has questioned France’s scientific backing and concluded in its own report that “in terms of risk to human and animal health or the environment”, there had been no reason to ban the GM maize.

[quote]”From a purely legal point of view, the European Commission could formally ask France to lift the measure, but we are currently reflecting on what will be the follow-up to EFSA’s opinion,” said a spokesman for EU health and consumer chief John Dalli to Reuters.[/quote]

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MON 810 maize – marketed as YieldGard in the U.S. by Monsanto – is a pest-resistant strain that was first introduced in 1997 by including DNA from a bacteria into its genetic level. While advocates have pointed to its ability to prevent harvests from being destroyed, critics claim that genetic modification could be harmful to other plants and animals.

According to the European Commission, the EFSA will now wait for France’s newly-elected president Francois Hollande to reveal his official stance on the issue, before deciding on its next action.

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Still, the timing of the French ban in March means that grain farmers will not be able to sow MON810 maize for the current growing season, said the Commission spokesman to AFP.