EU ministers to vote on GM potato

EU AGRICULTURE ministers will vote today on a highly controversial GM potato that, according to the World Health Organisation, could make people resistant to some antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections.

The vote will be a test of Ireland’s GM-free status insisted on by the Green Party’s programme for government with Fianna Fáil.

The Environment Minister and Green Party leader John Gormley voted against allowing the GM potato a few months ago while Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan normally abstains in such votes.

The potato, developed by the German chemical company BASF, contains a marker gene nptll, that according to the WHO and the EU Medicines Agency, can induce resistance to two families of antibiotics they say are “critically important for veterinary and human use”.

Greenpeace also notes the gene nptll was supposed to have been phased out by December 2004 under EU legislation because of its adverse effect on human health and the environment.

But the EU Food Safety Authority has said the potato is safe and this is the report that will be considered by agriculture ministers when they meet today in Brussels to discuss allowing it and four varieties of GM maize.

The ministers are expected to be split on the decision again with insufficient countries voting. If this is the case, the European Commission will be forced to decide and it is expected to go with the EFSA recommendation.

GM-Free Ireland Network launched a broadside against Fine Gael’s agriculture spokesperson, Michael Creed, for saying the Government’s GM free stance was unsustainable.

He claimed the failure to permit certain GM products for animal feed cost Irish farmers €150 million and demanded an end to what he called lies and scare mongering in the GM debate.

Network spokesperson, Michael O’Callaghan, said: “His suggestion that we have to face up to what he calls the reality of GM foods whether we like it or not comes directly from the biotech industry’s current public relations strategy designed to convince people there is nothing you can do to stop the GM invasion”.

The Network also described Mr Creed’s statement that GM was needed to feed the world and cope with globalclimate change as “akin to belief in Leprechauns”.