Global security threat
The world-wide release of GM crops and other Genetically Modified Living Organisms (GMLOs) has created a new category of security threat for humankind - and for the biosphere on which our well-being and survival depend.
Biological pollution from GMLOs can outlast global warming and nuclear waste, and impact our global ecosystem in perpetuity with unforeseeable health, agronomic, environmental, economic and social consequences.
International contamination from GM seeds and crops is already eroding the world's agricultural biodiversity, and destroying local food sovereignty and food security. The related patenting of GM and conventional agricultural seeds also enables a small number of giant agri-biotech and commodity trade corporations to seize monopoly control of the global food chain.
Resistance
European consumers, farmers, retailers, NGOs and Governments are leading the global resistance to GM food and farming. The European Commission prohibits the cultivation of GM crops without a positive risk assessment followed by legal approval. Despite a lack of due diligence in the EU risk assessment and the undemocratic nature of the approval process, the only GM crop approved for cultivation (Monsanto's patented MON810 maize) is grown on 0.06% of arable land in the EU, where 99.94% of arable land thus remains GM-free. Most EU Member States and Switzerland oppose the cultivation of GM crops, and many of them have banned or restricted GM cultivation at their national and/or regional levels.
But legal bans can not prevent contamination by wind-borne GM pollen drift and seed movement. Many EU countries continue GM research with experimental field trials, and GMOs have already begun to contaminate Europe's seeds, crops and food supply chain - especially in Spain, the only EU country whose Government still allows a GM crop to be grown commercially on a large scale.
Adressing a disaster before it happens
In addition to their defensive legal bans on GM crops, European countries therefore also need a pro-active insurance strategy for resilience against the potentially catastrophic dangers of agricultural GMLOs (such as widespread seed contamination, forced patenting, economic losses, unintended ecosystem effects, new diseases and harvest failures). This requires the development of our capacity to recover, develop and propagate safe Non-GM agricultural seeds, by designating at least one secure location as an international GM-free Biosafety Reserve for Europe.
The island of Ireland is the best possible EU Biosafety Reserve for many crop varieties [1] because of its geographical isolation, island status, predominantly up-wind location from transboundary GM pollen drift, relative immunity from climate change, unpolluted topsoil, GM-free history, and the Irish Government's adoption of a GM-free zone policy to ban field trials and cultivation of all GM crops in October 2009.
Precautionary Principle
This EU Biosafety Initiative is inspired by the Precautionary Principe enshrined in EU law. It embodies a collaborative international multi-stakeholder strategy to address a major GM contamination disaster before it happens.
It was launched by the GM-free Ireland Network at the Food and Democracy conference in Switzerland in April 2009. (You can download the original presentation as a 2.1MB pdf file). It contributed to the adoption of Ireland's GM-free zone policy.
If backed by the EU Parliament and Member States and implemented by EC legislation, this initiative will set a legal precedent with positive strategic implications for concurrent GM-free zone endeavours around the world.
Paradigm shift
One of the pre-requisites and expected outcomes of this project is to effect a paradigm shift in WTO and European Union rules governing the risk assessment, approval, regulation, release and trade of Genetically Modified Living Organisms (GMLOs).
The WTO defines GMOs as being "substantially equivalent" to their conventional counterparts. It therefore considers bans on GM crops as illegal under the Free Trade Agreement, which prohibits any impediment to the trade of "like products", regardless of genetic modification or any other differences in their "process and production methods" (PPMs).
Many EU Member States have already banned the only GM crop (Monsanto's patented MON 810 maize) that is approved for cultivation in the EU. More than 260 European regions, over 4,500 municipalities and other local entities and tens of thousands of farmers and food producers have done likewise and/or declared themselves as local GMO-free zones off-limits to any release of GM crops, with or without the support of their national governments.
Although the European Commission does not yet recognise the democratic right of Member States to establish national blanket bans on the cultivation of GM crops, it appears to acknowledge the right of EU Regions and other local areas to remain GM-free so as protect their local agriculture and biodiversity.
At the EU Council of Environment Ministers in March 2009, the Netherlands called for Member States to have the right to decide on the cultivation of GM seeds and crops that have been approved by the EU. (This was suspicious, since the Netherlands is one of the few pro-GM countries left in the EU.) In June 2009, Austria submitted a follow-up proposal entitled Genetically Modified Organisms - A Way Forward, which calls for the Commission to allow Member States to ban the cultivation of EU-approved GM crops for socio-economic as well as environmental reasons. Austria's proposal was supported by Bulgaria, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovenia. These proposals then led the European Commission to consider the possibility of re-nationalising the cultivation of GM seeds that have been approved for placing on the EU single market.
Many stakeholders (including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other NGOs) regard these proposals as a Trojan horse. Most Member States (including Ireland) want the final say on the cultivation of EU-approved GM crops in their own territories. But it seems the EC might only recognise their right to do so if the Member States agree to vote in favour of - and/or agree to fast-track - the approval of new GM products, and perhaps also abandon the EU "zero tolerance" food safety policy against contamination of the food chain with unapproved GMOs. Moreover, an EC agreement to re-nationalise cultivation decisions without additional legal protection for Member States could expose those that ban GM crops to be singled out for WTO lawsuits and punitive trade sanctions, without defence from the EU.
From a legal perspective, the ultimate source of the problem is the WTO's definition of GMOs as "substantially equivalent" to their conventional counterparts. This economic definition is scientifically, politically and legally untenable. WTO and EU laws which rely or derive from this definition are therefore unjust, and must be revoked.
Changing the rules of the game
This EU biosafety initiative differs from concurrent endeavours to create national and regional GM-free zones because of its transnational, European Union and global dimensions. The initiative aims to:
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Ireland can take the lead, by adopting legislation to implement its already-agreed GM-free zone policy announced as part of its Revised Programme for Government in October 2009. This legislation must prohibit (a) the importation of live GM seeds (including fruits containing them and GM seeds intended for non-food purposes such as processing into biofuels or industrial chemicals) and (b) the environmental release (including field trials and cultivation) of GM seeds, crops and other Genetically Modified Living Organisms (GMLOs), in line with Articles 10.6 and 11 of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to which Ireland is a signatory party. The legislation should mandate vigilant import controls to ensure compliance at ports of entry, and include strict liability and punitive fines for genetic trespass.
The Northern Ireland Assembly should adopt congruent legislation in its jurisdiction, so as to extend the GM-free zone policy to the whole island of Ireland. This would bring Northern Ireland in line with the other UK regions of Scotland and Wales, which also oppose the release of GM crops.
Local civil society stakeholder groups including local authorities, socially-responsible businesses, NGOs, consumers, farmers, food producers, food retailers, tourist operators, professional associations, and faith-based organisations on both sides of the Irish border are invited to help by lobbying their respective governments to implement this legislation as soon as possible. Enquiries.
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