The empire of the new GMOs alias NGTs (New Genomic Techniques) is establishing itself in Europe, according to the Big Ag team orders that the MEP Paolo De Castro had already announced at the beginning of the legislature. (1)
The ENVI (Environment, Public Health and Food Safety) Commission in the European Parliament aggravated the dose on 25 October 2023, even proposing to allow its use in organic farming. (2)
Those who should represent European citizens then go further, with the aim of preventing the distinction between new GMOs and natural plants. Without traceability or labeling or risk analysis review.
1) New GMOs in organic farming? The proposal of the European Parliament
The ENVI Commission of the European Parliament - responsible for reporting to the Strasbourg Assembly the draft position on new GMOs (NGTs), as well as food and feed containing them - proposed to modify the proposed EU regulation with a radical innovation:
– the original text of the European Commission reported the need to 'clarify the status of NGT category 1 plants for organic production. The use of new genomic techniques is currently incompatible with the concept of organic production of Regulation (EC) 2018/848 and with the perception that consumers have of organic products. The use of NGT category 1 plants should therefore also be prohibited in organic production' (recital 23),
– the MEPs of the ENVI Commission – misrepresenting the rules that have governed the organic agricultural and agri-food supply chains for over four decades (3) – instead propose to also admit into the organic sector the NGT plants of the fictitious 'category 1', constructed by the lobbies of the biotech Corporations on basis of an unscientific postulate of 'equivalence' with natural plants. (4)
2) Traceability and labeling disappeared
Traceability objectives and labeling - the only protections granted by the European Commission to supply chain operators and consumers, on 'category 1' NGTs and plant reproductive material derived from them - are then canceled by the ENVI Commission MEPs.
They disappear thus recital 21 and article 10 (labelling), as well as the part of recital 24 according to which 'to ensure traceability, transparency and the possibility of choice for operators, when researching and selecting plants, when selling seeds to farmers or making plant reproductive material available to third parties in any other way, the reproductive material NGT Category 1 plant must be labeled as Category 1 NGT'(recital 24).
3) Unjustifiable 'Justifications'
The justifications offered by the ENVI Commission of the European Parliament are based on the assumption - scientifically false (5) - of the equivalence between natural plants and 'verified conventional-like NGT'. As well as on the 'information' present in public databases that no one will be able to trace back to the seeds, food and feed made available on the market. And the equally unjustifiable affirmation of similar regulatory practices in different legal contexts (ie USA, where the 'deregulation' of GMOs has been in vogue for years). (6)
'The origin labeling of the seed bag for verified conventional NGT plants is discriminatory. NGT plants similar to conventional ones should be treated conventionally; this additional requirement creates unjustified distinctions and administrative burdens. Transparency and consumer choice can be fully guaranteed by making information on the use of NGTs (public databases) available to the public. The additional provisions on the labeling of seed bags create a third category of plant products between conventional and GMO. This is not in line with approaches taken in other countries and will create trade problems'.
4) No risk reassessment
The precautionary principle (TFEU, Article 191) should then give way, according to the ENVI Commission of the European Parliament, to the 'principle of proportionality'. To the point that - in addition to foreseeing the validity of the authorization of NBTs 'for an unlimited period' - the MEPs claim to eliminate the hypothesis of 'a new assessment when new information becomes available' (ex-recital 30).
The MEPs they also propose to remove from the text of the regulation the requirements of:
- 'carefully monitor the development and presence on the market of NGT plants and products and evaluate any impact on human and animal health, on the environment and on environmental, economic and social sustainability',
– collect information regularly, e
- 'within five years of the adoption of the first decision authorizing the deliberate release or placing on the market of NGT plants or products in the Union', entrust the European Commission with a re-evaluation of the regulation (ex-recital 40).
Risk reassessment by the European Commission every five years, according to MEPs, should instead be only possible and limited to 'measuring the progress made towards the availability on the EU market of NGT plants containing such characteristics or properties' (new recital 40). The risks of food safety, human and animal health, biodiversity and ecosystems would thus be excluded ex-lege (!).
5) No sovereignty to the member states
Risk assessment and management – already weakened at EU level, compared to traditional GMOs, despite what was established by the CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) (7) – is also precluded to the Member States. Who should therefore refrain, according to the MEPs serving Big Ag, from 'adopting measures that limit or prohibit the cultivation of category 2 NGT plants in all or part of their territory, provided for in Article 26 ter of Directive 2001/ 18/EC (new recital 37).
6) Viral deception. Dissociation between NGT and GMO
The 'new vocabulary' introduced by the European Parliament - in line with that advocated by George Orwell in '1984' - then introduces a 'legal definition' of 'NGT plant' from which the term 'genetically modified' is excluded. Thus we read, among the amendments proposed by the MEPs of the ENVI Commission, that:
- ''NGT plant' means a genetically modified plant obtained by targeted mutagenesis or cisgenesis, or a combination of the two, provided that it does not contain any genetic material from outside the breeders' gene pool that may have been temporarily inserted during development of the NGT plant' (new article 3.1.2)
The viral deception is motivated by equally false rhetoric, according to which 'the term 'genetically modified' would indicate that the process of using NGT techniques would modify the DNA of an organism by introducing DNA elements from a different organism. Therefore, it should be eliminated'.
7) Provisional conclusions
Myriads of seeds object of genetic engineering variously improvised with the imagination of AI could be patented and even worse deliberately released into the environment, in Europe, outside of any control and possibility of verifying the effects on the ecosystem, even before on human health and animal.
Nature is replaced by law by 'natural-similar', as once happened only for flavorings used in food products. But the 'natural-similar' - which is not natural - will be able to indiscriminately contaminate every cultivated field, food and feed. To the sole advantage of the four corporations (Big 4) that dominate the pesticide and seed market. (8)
The only voices out of the chorus however, they are those of the organic system - which claims its values of respect for nature and its biodiversity - and of the ecological movements and peasant agriculture. While large political groups, including 'social-mixed' ones, follow Big Ag's orders. And the mainstream media follows its rhetoric.
Dario Dongo
Footnotes
(1) Dario Dongo. GMO, the new empire that is advancing. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
(2) Draft report on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques and their food and feed, and amending Regulation (EU) 2017/625.
(2023)0226(COD)) European Parliament. Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety https://tinyurl.com/5d7naksv
(3) Donato Ferrucci, Dario Dongo. Production and labeling of organic products, reg. EU 2018/848. The ABC. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 2.2.22
(4) Dario Dongo. New GMOs, NGTs. The European Commission's deregulation proposal. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
(5) Dario Dongo, Riccardo Clerici, Silvia Comunian. New GMOs, it is essential to strengthen the risk analysis. Scientific review. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 14.6.20
(6) Marta Strinati, Dario Dongo. USA, 45 thousand new GMOs a year out of control. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
(7) Dario Dongo, Giulia Torre. New GMOs, Alt from the EU Court. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 31.7.18
(8) Dario Dongo. Seeds, the 4 masters of the world. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 15.1.19
(9) Alessandra Mei. Via Campesina unmasks the rhetoric on 'new GMOs' in 12 points. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
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