FRANCE: France's Academy of Medicine called yesterday for European countries to end their moratorium on genetically-modified (GM) crops, saying it saw no evidence that these plants were a danger to health.
FRANCE: In June 1999, seven EU countries imposed a four-year suspension on granting licences to grow new GM crops until issues of traceability and corporate liability had been resolved.
The academy said in a report that GM crops and their derivatives had been grown and eaten for about a decade, especially in the United States, and "no particular health problem has been detected". GM food could be a boon for countries with fast-growing populations and marginal or shrinking farmland, it added.
"GM use has been a generally positive experience," it said.
The moratorium should be lifted, the report said, adding however the caveat that it was still essential to set up "permanent systems for evaluation and biovigilance". The French Academy of Sciences is to issue a report on GM safety tomorrow.
Many western Europeans oppose GM crops, fearing they could be harmful to health or the environment.
The main argument put forward by environmentalists is that the technology is too recent to assess its long-term impact.
Eating GM food may have an as-yet unknown effect, for instance, on people with allergies, and GM genes could be transferred to other plants through wind-borne pollination, it is claimed.
The United States, where GM crops are widely grown and eaten, is a vociferous supporter. It accuses European green groups of scaremongering and of erecting a barrier to its food exports.
GM crops are plants that have had genes inserted into their DNA that confer specific qualities.
The first generation of these have mainly aimed at cutting costs for farmers, by for instance making corn exude an insecticide to kill pests or make it resistant to herbicide, thus enabling a farmer to make a once-off spraying to eradicate weeds without harming his crop.
The next generation is likely to focus on aspects of nutrition and yield, such as rice that would have high levels of vitamins or can be grown in salt-tainted water, a problem that is frequent in poor countries.
