EU Nations Divided Over Organic Food Rules (22/5/2006)

EXCERPTS: Several nations, including Belgium, Austria, Italy and Greece, demanded that any new rules on what constitutes organic should ensure that biotech content of the product be near zero, and not the proposed 0.9 percent limit, which EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel argued was needed to account for accidental contamination.

...Fischer Boel said that forcing the limit lower would cost farmers too much and would harm sales of organic goods, which have grown in popularity over the last decade.

GM WATCH COMMENT: It's outrageous that Fischer Boel claims to be protecting the interests of organic farmers and consumers, when it is organic farmers and consumers above all who most bitterly oppose her 0.9 percent GM threshold.

It'sthe interests of the biotech industry that Fischer Boel is busy protecting.
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EU Nations Divided Over Organic Food Rules
By CONSTANT BRAND
Associated Press, 22 May 2006
http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/05/22/ap2763756.html

European Union agriculture ministers were divided over plans Monday to set up new EU-wide labeling of organic and bio-produced foods.

Officials said several countries argued that a European-wide logo to identify products classified as organic would confuse consumers already familiar with the labeling used in their own countries.

Most EU nations already have their own labeling to identify organic products grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers and without being genetically altered.

Germany's deputy agriculture minister, Gert Lindemann, said the plan posed too many problems. "It is too bureaucratic," he said, adding that organic farmers in his country preferred sticking with national rules and guidelines on labels.

Several nations, including Belgium, Austria, Italy and Greece, demanded that any new rules on what constitutes organic should ensure that biotech content of the product be near zero, and not the proposed 0.9 percent limit, which EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel argued was needed to account for accidental contamination.

"There are different views on this," Fischer Boel told reporters. "It's quite clear that a majority of member states do really see this as a growing market and therefore it is important that we have common rules, so that we can give consumers certainty of the quality of the product that they buy."

Fischer Boel said that forcing the limit lower would cost farmers too much and would harm sales of organic goods, which have grown in popularity over the last decade.

EU officials said they hope to get a deal on the new labels by the end of the year.

Under the current proposal, at least 95 percent of the final product has to be organic for it to get the "EU-Organic" label. Products imported from non-EU countries would also be allowed to use the logo if their products abide by the EU rules.

The debate coincided with a separate discussion on how the EU could ensure that non-biotech crops are not contaminated by neighboring genetically modified crops.

Austrian Farm Minister Josef Proell, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said EU ministers agreed they "are keen on protecting the farmers that wish to stick to GMO-free methods."

Several EU nations, including Poland, Austria, France, Luxembourg, Hungary, and Germany, have voiced concern over the lack of rules on that issue.

Those countries have also instituted bans on EU approved biotech crops and products in recent years and some, like Poland and Greece, want a total ban on the growing of biotech crops in certain regions or within their entire territories.


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