1.Vatican: No Official OK for Genetically Modified Potato
2.Greece, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy, Hungary and France announce won't allow cultivation of GM potato

EXTRACT: The L'Osservatore Romano [the Vatican's semi-official newspaper] article observed that "it is no accident that precisely in 2009 -- a year in which in the developing countries GMOs have grown by 13%, as opposed to a world average of 7%, covering almost half of the cultivated surface of the planet with transgenic plants -- the number of hungry in the world for the first time exceeds one billion."

NOTE: Sounds like the Vatican has swallowed ISAAA's absurd hype on the supposed extent of the global area of GM crops, but they are absolutely spot on as to the failure of GM crops to address world hunger. As Pat Mooney recently commented, "Have you noticed how successful they have been? In 1996 [when commercial GM crops were first introduced] there were 400 million hungry people. Last year, during the last food summit, there were a billion hungry people."
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1.Vatican: No Official OK for Genetically Modified Potato
Zenit.org, MARCH 4 2010
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=zenit&id=28542

ROME - After the European Commission approved Tuesday the commercial cultivation of a genetically modified potato, the Vatican's semi-official newspaper clarified that the Church has no official position on the practice of modifying the genes of produce.

The commission's approval of the Amflora potato is only the second OK it's given to genetically modified crops; in 1998 it approved a modified maize strain.

The Amflora potato was developed by the German chemical company BASF, and it is high in starch content. The potato is not designed for human consumption, but rather for manufacturing products such as paper and glue.

The European Commission's approval of the potato has fanned the debate about the eventual effects of genetically modified organisms on human health. The Amflora potato in particular has a gene that is resistant to antibiotics.

L'Osservatore Romano clarified in an article for today's edition that some reports have suggested a hypothetical Vatican approval of the GM potato.

"There has been talk of an explicit 'yes' to the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture, confusing once again personal commentaries of ecclesiastics with 'official' statements attributed to the Holy See or the Church," L'Osservatore Romano explained.

The Vatican daily instead cited Benedict XVI's "Caritas in Veritate," where the Pope says that the "Church does not have technical solutions to offer" but does "have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation."

This mission includes the condemnation of world hunger, which the Holy Father asserts is "not so much dependent on lack of material things as on shortage of social resources, the most important of which are institutional."

Proponents of GM organisms propose them as a solution for hunger (though not in the particular case of the Amflora potato).

However, the L'Osservatore Romano article observed that "it is no accident that precisely in 2009 -- a year in which in the developing countries GMOs have grown by 13%, as opposed to a world average of 7%, covering almost half of the cultivated surface of the planet with transgenic plants -- the number of hungry in the world for the first time exceeds one billion."
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2.Update on EU backlash against the Commission's GMO potatoes
Greenpeace International, 4 March 2010
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/ge-food-EU020310v [multiple embedded links here]

The shocking approval of the GE potato by Barroso's Commission has been met with a wave of strong reactions among the EU member-states. The governments of Greece, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy, Hungary and France have publicly announced that they will not allow the cultivation of the GE potato in their countries. And various ministers have expressed their frustration with the decision of Barroso -- who is neglecting the unanimous call from the EU Environment Ministers Council to repair the system of authorisations of GE crops. Germany company Emsland, the second biggest starch producer worldwide, has also announced that they will not use the GE potato because of the strong opposition against it.