Save our Seeds

"Norway appeals to you as the Commissioner for the Environment to reject the current proposal and instead adopt a draft establishing a threshold value for labelling and traceability of seeds based on the detection limit," says a letter from Norways Ministers for Agriculture and for Environment to Margot Walström.</p><p><a href="http://www.saveourseeds.org/downloads/Norway_letter_03_09_04.pdf">Norwegian letter to the Commission</a>

As the European Commission is due to adopt a proposal for a Decision "establishing minimum thresholds for adventitious or technically unavoidable traces of genetically modified seeds in other products" on 8 September. According to a coalition of some of Europe`s most vocal campaign groups this would mark the end of consumer freedom of choice.</p><p><a href="http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/news-NG.asp?id=54487">Food .com: Commission urged to scrap new GM Decision</a></p><p><a href="http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200408/d297ad7e-c9f7-45c6-9e46-d47ed5893715.htm">Europolitix: GM divide in EU Commission</a></p><p><a href="http://www.genet-info.org/genet/2004/Sep/msg00019.html">GENET: Joint NGO press release</a>

The company controls 100 percent of the market for certain specialized soybean and corn seeds, along with more than 80 percent of the market for a corn that resists destructive insects. But is it illegal - That is the question raised in a lawsuit filed last month by Basel, Switzerland-based Syngenta, the world`s biggest agrichemicals company and bitter Monsanto rival.</p><p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reutersEdge&storyID=6069758">Reuters</a>

Farmers nationwide will be paid interest on the $110 million settlement with makers and distributors of genetically altered corn that was mistakenly introduced into the food supply.</p><p><a href="http://yankton.net/stories/082404/new_20040824035.shtml">Yankton Daily Press</a>

That phenomenon was illustrated recently when engineered genes from corn grown in the United States strayed into remote fields of corn in Mexico.'This hasn't been done before, and I'm excited to get started,' said Norman Ellstrand, a professor of genetics who is also director of UCR`s Biotechnology Impacts Center.</p><p><a href="http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=869">UCR News</a>

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) wants to hear scientific opinion before taking its decision on the US GMO case against the EU. This will put off a decision until March 2005 the earliest.Environmentalists have celebrated the WTO decision as a small victory for the EU.</p><p><a href="http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe?204&OIDN=1508143&-tt=sc">EurActiv.com Portal - News nr 1508143</a></p><p><a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26329325.htm">Reuters</a>

Deborah Koons Garcia, a long-time documentary filmmaker (and wife of the Grateful Dead`s Jerry Garcia), spent the past three years writing, directing and producing "The Future of Food", a documentary on GMOs and monocultures of all sorts in the USA.</p><p><a href="http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64089,00.html?tw=wn_story_mailer">Wired: "Bad Seeds"</a></p><p><a href="http://thefutureoffood.com/">homepage of "The Future of Food"</a>

MONSANTO FINDS SOUTH AFRICA A HANDY LABORATORY AND THE GATEWAY TO AFRICA.</p><p><a href="http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1687711-6094-0,00.html">Business Day</a>

France, where anti-GMO campaigners destroy experimental crops on a regular basis, has become Europe`s main battleground over the issue of transgenic food. But with a new group, describing itself as 'volunteer farmers and researchers in favour of GMO tests', clashing with Mr Bové`s supporters and the recent publication by the French Health and Food Safety Board (AFSSA) of a report stating that certain GMOs could be beneficial to health, public opinion seems to be coming around to the idea that the phenomenon is unstoppable.</p><p><a href="http://dbs.cordis.lu/fep-cgi/srchidadb?ACTION=D&SESSION=294120048-24&DOC=1&TBL=EN_NEWS&RCN=EN_RCN_ID:22495&CALLER=EN_NEWS">Yankton Daily Press</a>

The outgoing European Commissions plan to agree on regulations over GM seeds in a last minute attempt on September 8th is still controversial within the Commission itself. So far no agreement has been reached on thresholds for GM contamination of conventional seeds. On September 8th the Commission also plans for the first time to list GM varieties (Mon 810) in the EUs Common Seed Catalogue, which would allow farmers in all member states to use these GM seeds, which so far have only been planted in Spain.</p><p><a href="http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/26571/story.htm">Reuters: EU Commission prepares for battle over GMO seeds</a></p><p><a href="http://www.saveourseeds.org/en/frame.php?page=directive">Details and background from Save our Seeds</a>