EXTRACT: José Bové: Science, when it seeks knowledge, can't have limits. But to believe today that all the technologies developed in a lab could be useful is to be in the realm of superstition.

It is necessary today to evalutate the technological choices resulting from research, based on scientific, ecoological, economic, social and ethical criteria.    This kind of risk assessment is the only way to legitimise the entry of any scientific application into the social sphere.
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José Bové, Green MEP
JOSE BOVE:  "THE LOBBIES ARE TRYING TO FORCE GMOS ON EUROPE"
Le Monde [France], 13 July 2010
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/chat/2010/07/13/ogm-l-europe-va-t-elle-ceder_1387222_3244.html

[Translation courtesy of GM-free Ireland]

In a chat on LeMonde.fr, the Green MEP José Bové says that the proposals of John Dalli, the European Commissioner for health, create a framework to push GMOs inside European borders.

Chat moderated by Hervé Kempf

Toublant : Is Europe strong enough to face the lobbies of the big transnational corporations?

José Bové : The lobbies are all based in Brussels, and they try to impose their aims, including GMOs, on the Commission, and also on the Parliament. That said, one senses more and more resistance within the European Parliament in relation to questions that impinge on food and health. And the last vote of the Parliament to ban cloned meat and nanoparticles is proof of this.

Maxime : I'd like to know if you are not too discouraged by these money-hungry multinationals which will do anything to commercialise their seeds. Do you still have hope?

José Bové : In the twelve years since the start of this stuggle against the GM seed companies, we have won an important result against the odds, which is the affirmation of European public opinion against GMOs in farming and food.

And last week in Strasbourg, a majority of the Parliament said it favoured the labelling of produce from livestock fed on GMOs. Which shows that things are moving ahead toward GM-free farming.

isabelle : What are you concerned about in the Commission's proposal? After all, it looks as if it is returning their free choice in this dossier to the Member States?

José Bové : There are two concerns in the Commission's proposal. They both arise in a context where Commissioner Barroso clearly states that he himself favours the spread of GMOs inside the European frontiers. The proposals made this very day by Commissioner Dalli set the stage for the entry of these GMOs.

There are a number of problems : the first is a weakening of the risk assessment unit of EFSA (the European Food Safety Authority), including notably the promotion of substantial equivalence, which is the Trojan horse that was used when GMOs were launched in the USA

Second, Dalli's proposal is a false correct answer, because the renationalisation of GMOs will create problems for intra-European trade. Since there are no state controls at their borders, GMO products will circulate in all directions and contaminate consumers' food, to the extent that it will be impossible to organise segregated food chains.

In this regard, Commissioner Dalli says that the measures taken by the Member States must conform with the treaty, particularly in relation to the principle of non-discrimination between national and non-national production.

Another problem created by this re-nationalisation: the distortion of competition for organic farmers.    Indeed, the selling capacity will be completely different for an organic farmer in a country where GMOs are banned, and an organic farmer where they are allowed.

These two first reasons will clearly create a risk of conflicts between Member States, whose only solution will be to appeal to the European Court of Justice.

Final problem : the WTO headache.  Indeed, the 27 Member States are now represented by the European Commission when facing the WTO. And what will be the attitude of companies like Monsanto and others?

Will they, for example the United States or Argentina, turn against the Member States? And how will the Commission react? Will it defend its own proposal to allow things to take their course, or will it support the countries which will decide to ban GMO varieties?

TVR : Will Europe not risk depriving itself of a big part of the innovation and investment for research and development, if it adopts a too strong position on this theme? European groups like Bayer Crop are delocalising their R&D work.

José Bové :  I don't think that GMOs are the main innovation in agriculture today.

I think there is truly a need to develop agriculture starting from biodiversity, especially by promoting participatory research between scientists and farmers.

This notably because of climate changes and the need to face new constraints linked either to water shortage or new agronomic conditions.

charles : "Science must show us the way forward" - wouldn't you say this phrase of John Dalli in this afternoon's Le Monde is, by iself, rather worrying?

José Bové:  Science, when it seeks knowledge, can't have limits. But to believe today that all the technologies developed in a lab could be useful is to be in the realm of superstition.

It is necessary today to evalutate the technological choices resulting from research, based on scientific, ecoological, economic, social and ethical criteria.    This kind of risk assessment is the only way to legitimise the entry of any scientific application into the social sphere.

Chantal : Who do you think "contaminated" the European Health Commissioner, Mr. Dalli: Monsanto, Bayer-BASF, Pioneer?

José Bové :  I'm not in Mr. Dalli's good books, but the greatest influence on him come from the person who nominated him to his post, that's to say Mr. Barroso.

sev :  I'm  not very well informed about GMOs, but I heard say that they provide a way to increase the production of food at lower cost, similarly to fertilisers and pesticides. We already know the negative effects of fertilisers, notabaly on water quality, but they are nevertheless allowed in France. Why refuse GMOs while fertilisers are allowed?

José Bové :  Today we realise that GMOs never enabled increased yields.  On the other hand, if you consider the sales of herbicides or insecticides by the companies that produce GMOs, you see that they increase faster and faster in the countries where GMOs are used.

Which tends to prove that GMOs were not introduced to use less herbicides or insecticides, but to sell these modified seeds and the treatments which go with them. It’s thus a good commercial venture at the expense of biodiversity and the environment.

Pierre M : Does the organic farming lobby have any chance of being heard by the politicians, faced with that of the seed and chemical companies?

José Bové :  Today the choice is being made by consumers. In all the European countries, we see the demand for organic produce keeps rising.

It’s therefore obvious that there are increasing calls for environmentally-friendly farming in European public politics. And I see this every day at the European Parliament Commission on organic farming.

Toublant : Do you sense any sort of corruption at the level of the European Union institutions?

José Bové : I have no evidence to prove than any particular person or institution has been corrupted.

Nevertheless, a worrying thing happened last year, when the person responsible for GMO risk assessment at EFSA, Mrs. Renckens, left her job to return to the Syngenta company which makes GMOs, before the theoretical delay that is supposed to prevent any conflict of interest, a delay of two years in her case. This is a worrying example, and calls for a change in that body’s recruitment process.

Guest : We have recently heard statements on this subject by the President of the European Commission, Mr. Barroso, and by Commissioner Dalli, but I am surprised not to have heard more from the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Dacian Ciolos, who seemed fairly in favour of organic farming. What’s his position?

José Bové : The GMO dossier is now in the hands of the Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs. In the previous Commission, it was managed by the Commissioner for the Environment. This clearly goes to show that farming no longer controls the GMO dossier.

We think this issue of GMOs should be co-managed by the three Commissioners: Health & Consumer Affairs, Environment and Farming, and the Internal Market.  Ciolos, the Commissioner in charge of Agriculture, does indeed favour a kind of agriculture that is ecologically responsible, and he also defends the need to maintain small farms. This is a very important improvement compared to his predecessors.

Toublant : Do your MEP colleagues from other European countries share your views on GMOs?

José Bové :  As I said earlier, the majority of MEPs voted to label produce from livestock fed on GMOs last week in Strasbourg. I am particularly stuck by the high level of awareness of the MEPs from the twelve accession countries the Eastern countries. And by the way, Bulgaria was one of the first European countries to say it would reject the Amflora GM potato.

Baltazar :  MON810 makes it possible to reduce (carcinogenic) mycotoxin contamination by 75%, far more effectively than a fungicide treatment (see work by INRA [France’s National Institute of Agronomic Research] published last spring). Why should one ignore such an innovation, while no study has ever demonstrated negative health or environmental impacts of this maize?  [Comment from GM-free Ireland: This claim is incorrect: numerous studies have shown negative health and environmntal impacts].

José Bové :  In this regard, you have to start with the problems of monocultures, and thus not try to solve every problem without some agronomy. Today’s increase in mycotoxins is related to large-scale production areas, and to the problem of storage. Another agronomic practice, notably crop rotation, makes it possible to eliminate this problem.

sebastien : How can one fight against GMOs as a simple citizen?

José Bové :  Huge question... I think, as a citizen, Europeans will have a new tool: the right to the citizens’ initiative petition. This new tool available to Europeans will allow, hopefully by spring 2011, a million people who will have signed a petition to ask the Commission to review one of its policies.

The issue of GMOs should be one of the first intiatives in the context of this new democratic tool. But at the same time, every citizen is also a consumer, and it’s by supporting organic farming and local farming that he can promote an alternative to industrial agriculture.

Zoé : Yesterday Mr. Sarkozy said he would defend France’s farmers and farming policy at the G20... Isn’t this worrying? Isn’t it time to change farming policy in France?

José Bové : Nicolas Sarkozy should rememer that farming is a matter of European competence since 1957, and that European farming policy is a matter which concerns the whole of the European territories, and not just that of France.

It’s obvious today that the CAP must be changed. This is the purpose of the debates on CAP after 2013. We need a CAP that is built on four pillars: to make Europe self-sufficient to feed its 500 million European inhabitants; to have a CAP that guarantees the quality of its produce and that enshrines farm production within sustainable agriculture; a farming policy which provides farmers with a fair income for all; a CAP without negative impacts on farming in other countries, notably those of the South. These are the four pillars needed to re-build European farming policy.

Jean : A question that is slightly off the subject: What do you think of the possibility of [the brilliant French MEP] Eva Joly running for the [EU] Presidency in 2010?

José Bové : Even if it’s still too early to know who could be the Europe Ecology candidate in 2010, I would nevertheless answer by saying that Eva Joly would be a very good candidate in my opinion, and that in the currently sterile context of power, her experience, her independence, and the respect for all the work she has done as an investigating judge obviously make her an eminently presentable candidate.