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- Government urges MEPs to vote for GM food
- 2003
- 10 reasons supermarket mergers are bad for consumers, farmers and small businesses
- Asda spinach over pesticide levels
- Asda/Wal-Mart exploits planning loophole
- Biting back at GM crops
- Blair sacks Meacher
- Committee Stage for Recycling Bill
- Cornwall goes GM-free
- Credibility of GM public debate hangs by a thread
- Cumbria goes GM-free
- Deplorable attack on GM scientific critic
- Devon votes to go GM-free
- Dorset demands caution over GM crops
- EU commission calls for GM contamination of organic food to be allowed
- EU meets US over GM trade war
- Farmers and consumers must have a say in Wal-Mart takeover
- Fat cats fight over Safeway, consumers and farmers are real losers
- Fat-cat Tesco: putting on the pounds at farmers' expense
- Garden pesticides health warning
- GM activists make a pilgrimage for a GM-free Britain
- GM activists make a pilgrimage for a GM-free Britain
- GM beet research answers very few questions
- GM contamination - Government experts disagree
- GM jury challenges FSA policy on labelling
- GM public debate fiasco
- GM study highlights need for urgent rethink over GM crops
- GM trade war - who decides what we eat?
- GM trade war accelerates
- GM won't cure hunger in Africa
- GM-free food could be "impossible"
- Government agrees to delay GM debate
- Government failing to regulate supermarkets, says new report
- Government launches GM debate
- Government may ignore public opinion on GM crops
- Government must address GM debate chaos say groups
- Government must clarify role of GM debate
- Government opposes tough Euro GM rules
- Government report on economics of GM crops
- Government to publish GM science review
- Government urges MEPs to vote for GM food
- Government warns GM farmers over contamination threat
- Hundreds of pesticides banned
- Hundreds turn out for Waste lobby
- Illegal GM contamination threat
- Is Tesco spin on Safeway takeover a joke?
- Lake District National Park first to go GM-free
- Lake District National Park to host GM debate
- Local campaigners call for GM-free Britain election pledge
- MEPs back tougher GM labels
- Ministers try to stop GM food labels
- Morrisons take-over bad news for consumers
- MPs call for extension to GM national debate
- New analysis casts doubt on GM farm scale evaluations
- New maps reveal massive extent of GM pollution threat
- Pesticide review fails consumers and farmers
- Recycling Bill clears the Commons
- Safeway decision must wait for code review
- Sainsbury's: making life taste bitter for banana growers
- Scepticism as GM debate ends
- Second reading for Recycling Bill
- Shameful EU plans for growing GM crops
- Shropshire goes gm-free
- Slow progress on pesticide residues
- Slow progress on pesticide residues
- South Gloucestershire votes to go GM-free
- South Hams votes to go GM-free
- Stop Safeway stitch-up, alliance demands
- Supermarket code fails farmers
- Supermarket code fails farmers
- Supermarkets continue to shun GM food
- Supermarkets must be blocked from Safeway takeover
- The US ghost fleet – behind the hype
- UK votes to keep highly toxic pesticide
- UN treaty regulating GM to become law
- Uncertainty over GM safety
- US files WTO GM complaint
- US threat over GM food
- Warwickshire goes GM-free
- Why the Safeway take-over must be stopped
Government urges MEPs to vote for GM food9 May 2003
The Government is asking UK Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to vote in favour of the GM contamination of our food and against the widespread labelling of food containing traces of GM materials, Friends of the Earth revealed. The advice comes ahead of the Government's 'public debate' on GM foods.
MEPs are voting on new European legislation to strengthen the labelling of food containing GM-derived ingredients. Currently food containing at least one per cent of GM DNA must be labelled. The new proposals would strengthen the legislation by:
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Reducing the GM labelling threshold. MEPs backed a 0.5 per cent labelling threshold at the first reading last year, but the Council of Ministers increased it to 0.9 per cent. MEPs can still vote for the 0.5 per cent threshold, though Friends of the Earth has been calling for the limit to be set at the lowest detectable level (currently 0.1 per cent).
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Increasing the scope of the legislation to include GM derivatives, which don't contain DNA, such as oil and lecithin. This would be achieved through a comprehensive 'traceability' regime.
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Extending it to cover animal feed.
However, the Government is urging MEPs to weaken the proposals by voting to maintain the current GM threshold of one per cent. The recommendation is contained in a briefing to MEPs from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The briefing claims thresholds below one per cent are unenforceable. But the Government's own Central Science Laboratory has confirmed that a limit of detection of 0.1 per cent is verifiable.
The briefing comes hot on the heels of the FSA's own Citizen's Jury, held in Slough in early April, the 15 jurors unanimously recommended comprehensive labelling of any food containing GM ingredients or derived from GM crops including "a GM logo".
EU citizens strongly support comprehensive labelling, with the latest polls indicating that 94 per cent back strong EU legislation to maintain choice for consumers.
"Consumers have made it perfectly clear that they want comprehensive GM labelling so that they can avoid food containing GM ingredients," said Friends of the Earth's GM Campaigner, Pete Riley. "But once again the UK Government is ignoring public concern on this issue. It is urging MEPs to weaken new European legislation on GM food labels, and reduce the ability of consumers to choose what they eat. So much for the openness of the Government's GM public debate, to be launched next month. The role of the Food Standards Agency must also be questioned. It claims to be listening to consumer concerns, but when it comes to GM labelling, it seem to represent the biotech industry. The major supermarkets are already working to a 0.1 per cent threshold."
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