European Court of Justice banned Honey containing pollen from GMOs

[KMBonn]

Good news from Bruxelles. Today, the European Court of Justice issued a groundbreaking judgment (legal case C-442-09).

Have a look to [URL="http://bundesbienen.info/?p=1408[/URL]

Greetings, Klaus

[Neils]

Doesn't ban it as far a my understanding of it goes. It appears to require the beekeeper to obtain separate authorisation to sell honey containing pollen from (authorised) GM crops as the scope of the original authorisation to grow the stuff doesn't cover honey.

Not entirely sure how that can be regarded as good news either way. In the case of a ban I can't sell my honey full stop, in the case if having to seek authorisation to sell it that's an additional expense and waste of time getting round something that was nothing to do with me in the first place.

[gavin]

There is a scathing critique of the German approach to MON810 in a scientific paper here:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/.../fulltext.html

It is surprising to see a scientific journal be so vituperative about political decisions. Essentially, the German government was said to be hugely (and misleadingly) selective in the science it used to justify its position.

This particular type of maize was approved in the US in 1996, and shortly after in Canada, Argentina, Australia, Japan, South Africa and Switzerland, for human food and animal feed. It was approved in the EU for animal feed in 1998 and is still grown on large areas in Spain. Fifteen years of safe use ... and now we have a 'victory' that means that any marketing of honey in Germany is suspect because there *might* be a very very very small level of contamination of something grown in other EU countries (despite the ban in Germany), which disperses over huge distances on the wind, and is generally regarded as safe. Nice one, well done, great service to humanity there!

Whatever you think of the company owning this line or the technology itself, the effect is to control European Pod Borer, a lepidopteran pest which otherwise would require insecticidal sprays. Are beekeepers really against technology which can reduce insecticide use for no effect on the bees themselves? If so, why?

Coexistence is about agreeing thresholds, keeping everybody safe, and allowing those who do see benefits in adopting the technology to be able to use it. This decision is the result of political games to remove the technology from possible use, to drive a coach and horses through the possibility of coexistence. So yes, it is a victory for those who have tried to engineer it. But what about humanity in general? Are we all now better off or worse off because of it? Are we in a better or a worse position to keep the planet's food supply arriving in the shops?

Gavin

PS The views expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the views of the SBA. :-) About time we had a proper debate on this though.

[gavin]

Apparently .....

http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/d...cp110079en.pdf

Mr Bablok keeps bees near a GM trial site. His pollen has GM maize pollen in it, and his honey too. Now he can't sell his honey (with a 'very small amount of GM maize DNA') or his pollen (amount unspecified). The argument seems to have been around whether the pollen was not an impurity by an ingredient.

[Jon]

Whatever you think of the company owning this line or the technology itself, the effect is to control European Pod Borer, a lepidopteran pest which otherwise would require insecticidal sprays. Are beekeepers really against technology which can reduce insecticide use for no effect on the bees themselves? If so, why?

I take that point, and it is related to the neonicotinoid argument - as a ban on neonicotinoids is a de facto vote for the return of carbamates or pyrethroid pesticides which are much more dangerous for bees and the wider environment.

In the case of maize, is it not possible to work and develop some of the heritage varieties which may have some natural resistance to the pests you mention.
On a small scale, I used to grow maize in mexico, a variety called Tehuacanero (origin Tehuacan) and never had to spray with anything.
It had its defects such as growing to 12 feet high under good conditions and sometimes having cobs above head height.
Some of it could blow flat under windy conditions. No sprays though!
Commercial growers used imported seed from the US and used sprays at various points during the crop cycle. I don't know if it was GM maize or not but the seed was very expensive.
There is a lot of anger due to the contamination of heritage varieties with GM pollen. Grain which was sold into Mexico for use as animal feed was planted by farmers and the GM pollen has now contaminated local stocks. There was a total lack of control and supervision.
Maybe there is a happy medium here whereby there is an effort made to preserve heritage varieties which may have useful genetics.
The way things are going there will be a limited amount of varieties on the market controlled by just a few companies.
I don't think roundup ready GM maize is dangerous or toxic per se but creating weed free sterile monocultures is bad for bees and other invertebrates which need food plants.

[Jon]

This was covered in the Guardian today as well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...urope-honey-gm