15 Leading French Non-Governmental Organizations and 200,000 Spanish Farmers Call for Ban on GE Food
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Excerpts from Campaign for Food Safety News #18
http://www.purefood.org (Visit this web page!)
On March 15 leading French non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
including Greenpeace and Ecoropa, called for the French government to
follow the lead of the UK and Denmark and impose a national ban on the
planting of all GE crops. Etienne Vernet of Ecoropa told Reuters that the
French public demand "a moratorium on all types of genetically modified
food for three to five years." In response to growing public pressure, the
French government recently implemented a ban on growing transgenic beets
and rapeseed.
Other EU nations with partial or comprehensive bans on growing or importing
GE crops include Austria, Greece, and Luxembourg. GE crops are also banned
in Norway. On April 1, the Greece government announced a ban on planting GE
crops and vowed to join with other EU nations to prevent further approvals
of GE foods.
EU authorities have rejected all new applications for GE products since
April 1998, much to the chagrin of the US government and biotech
transnationals. Four biotech applications are currently deadlocked--a
Monsanto corn, a Zeneca tomato, and two Monsanto Bt cotton applications. On
March 22, a leading Spanish farmers organization, COAG, with 200,000
members, called for a complete moratorium on GE foods and crops