Monsanto move to drop GM wheat a response to market forces, says Byrne
The US agri-chemical company earlier announced that it would not try to market Roundup Ready, a GM strain of wheat it has developed over seven years at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Environmentalists opposed to GM products hailed the decision as a major victory for consumers and farmers worldwide and claimed it was indicative of growing biotech crop opposition overall. They claimed it was a key defeat for the firm in the fight to stop GM crops.
Mr Byrne, who was attending the EU Council of agricultural ministers informal meeting in Killarney, said the decision was a matter entirely for the company.
He said his job at EU level is to ensure that that consumers are properly informed, that laws are in place to properly protect them, that foods will be properly labelled and that traceability will be in place to enable them to decide whether they should choose GM products or not.
Mr Byrne said a de facto moratorium on new GM foods had been in place in the EU for some years. In that time, necessary legislation to protect consumers had been put in place.
He said this was what member states and the Commission wanted and that legislation became fully operational about a month ago.
Mr Byrne said the EU had done what it was asked to do to enable GM foods to be placed on the market. He said the European Commission will make a decision on May 19 which will in effect authorise the placing on the market of a tin of GM sweetcorn for consumers to buy or not as they decide.
“But I want to stress that these tins of sweetcorn will be labelled as GM foods and therefore consumers can decide for themselves whether to consume them or not. That has been a direct result of the legislation we have put in place,” he said.
Meanwhile, Agriculture and Food Minister Joe Walsh, who recently said that Ireland’s attitude to GM products was cautious and precautionary, welcomed the Monsanto decision.
