Gormley: Here is best place in Europe to be GM-free

THE island of Ireland is in the best position in Europe to be a GM-crop-free region, Environment Minister John Gormley told his EU counterparts in Paris.

He supports a French drive to create GMO-free regions throughout the EU, and to introduce rules to make legalising genetically engineered crops more difficult.

The proposals are likely to bring the EU into conflict with the US whose biotech companies dominate the GM world market. Only one GM crop, Bt Maize, can be legally grown in the EU.

The ministers agreed to set up a committee made up of civil servants representing the member states to study the whole issue of GM and report back before the end of the year.

France, which has taken over the EU presidency, wants more scientific evidence on the safety of GM for human health and the environment. They also want to extend the studies carried out by the European Food Safety Agency to look at how growing GM crops affects peoples lives and livelihoods and to take into account the fact that 70% of EU citizens do not want GM food.

Mr Gormley, speaking after the Paris meeting, said it would be sensible to have completely GM-free regions in Europe but this would be more difficult for some areas as bees and the wind spread GM seeds and contaminate non-GM crops.

It would be practically impossible to isolate GM crops in Ireland, where there are small farms, without them contaminating neighbouring areas.

For this reason he believed the whole island should be a GMO-free zone and this was part of the programme for Government.

It also made sense economically as Ireland exported its agricultural produce and marketed it as being from a clean, green island.

Most consumers and Europe’s supermarket chains were not buying GM. “Ireland has a quality food image. This unique selling point would be threatened should GM crops be sown in Ireland,” he said.

Head of GM-free Ireland, Michael O’Callaghan, welcomed the move and said so far a big number of regions in Ireland have declared themselves GM-free.

He said it was important for the whole country to be GM-free as it’s virtually impossible to prevent contamination. GM companies have sued farmers in countries such as Canada when their crops were found to include GM from seed that had blown onto their land.

Mr O’Callaghan said all GM seed should be banned here. It is imported as animal feed stuff.

All GM must be verified by EFSA as safe before it can be grown in the EU but several EU countries including France and Austria have banned all GM.