Credit: DavidIcke.com
First Scotland opted to ban GM crops from its country, citing fear of GMO crops contaminating its food supply, then Germany followed suit. Now, both Latvia and Greece have booted Monsanto from their countries and banned the only GM crop presently allowed to be grown in EU countries, Monsanto’s MON810 GM Maize.
If it wasn’t clear before, it seems quite evident that the tide is turning. Big biotech companies are losing influence by the day, and the addition of two more European countries in favor of banning GMOs is evidence of that.
Under the EU law signed in March, individual countries can seek geographical exclusion from any approval request for GM cultivation across the EU. Every request to ‘opt out’ of GM cultivation has to be approved by not only the European Commission but also the company making the application, Monsanto.
As Sustainable Pulse shares, Greece and Latvia are the first countries in the EU to have had their geographic opt-out’s from growing GM crops accepted by Monsanto. Germany and France are only a few of the countries expected to follow suit and ban the cultivation of GM Maize within the month.
Just last week, German Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt informed German states of his intention to ban the use of GM crops. His announcement came shortly after the Scottish government announced it would ban GM crops to protect that country’s clean, green status.
According to Professor Carlo Leifert, Professor of Ecological Agriculture at Newcastle University, the Scottish Government’s decision to ban GM crops is right and that “there are likely to be significant commercial benefits from Scotland being clearly recognised as a GM-free region”.