Wales has asked the EU for a derogation to any future plans to plant GMO crops in Europe, Rebecca Evans AM, Deputy Minister for Farming and Food, announces. This follows the announcement of GMO bans in at least 15 member states across the EU.
That means that Wales has confirmed its long-standing GMO-free status by using GMO rules agreed earlier this year. Under these rules, counties and regions referred to as "competent authorities" can notify the Commission and the biotech industry that they do not wish named GMO varieties to be grown on their territories. At present there is just one variety (MON810 maize) approved for cultivation within the EU, and seven others in the pipeline. All 8 are now banned from Wales.
The Welsh ban follows bans imposed by the Scottish and Northern Irish governments, leaving England as the only part of the UK in which GMOs can be grown. In theory, GMO policy is supposedly agreed between the 4 governments or "competent authorities", but Westminster has traditionally ignored the wishes of its three partners when it comes to GMO votes in Brussels. This has caused resentment. Now England finds itself isolated, and UK policy on GMOs is thrown into disarray.
Speaking for GM-Free Cymru, a community pressure group campaigning to keep Wales free of GMOs, Dr Brian John said: "This is great news, for which we have waited for 15 years since Wales was first threatened with the growing of GMO crops which nobody wants and nobody needs. In the early days of our campaign Carwyn Jones was instrumental in keeping GMOs out of Wales through the use of rather interesting legal device, and since then the Welsh Government has followed a policy of pursuing the "most restrictive policy possible under the law" when it comes to GMOs. Past efforts have concentrated on the "coexistence regulations", but under the new EU rules, up until 3rd October 2015 actual bans could be brought in on named GMO varieties and then enforced by law.
We congratulate Rebecca Evans for following the lead of Scotland and Northern Ireland in a rather difficult Welsh political context. Next, we must concentrate on getting Roundup and glyphosate out of the food supply, since they are responsible for massive health and environmental damage."
