Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-17-Speech-3-328"
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"en.20031217.12.3-328"2
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"Mr President, taking into account the extent of the various problems posed by GMOs, on which there are no obvious and convincing scientific conclusions, the issue of the coexistence of GMO production and non-GMO production should be thought of as a long-term issue and not as a temporary situation which we have to manage while we wait for GMO production to assert itself as the dominant, or even exclusive, method of crop production.
It is conventional farming and organic farming which are the rule, and GMO production which is the exception under observation, and not the other way round. We need to ask questions, not about the viability of non-GMO production, but about the precautions to be taken to protect that production from contamination by GMOs. The rapporteur is right to emphasise the proven insufficiency of our knowledge in a series of crucial areas, which should encourage us, admittedly, to continue the research, but also to behave with great caution. We are looking here at cross-fertilisation (outcrossing), overwintering of seed, soil concentration, resistance, diffusion and dissemination. We must be extremely vigilant in order to avoid a situation in which the provisions adopted on authorisation, traceability and labelling are circumvented by other provisions, on coexistence, which are too vague, uncertain or unclear, thereby creating a
which would sweep away all those precautionary provisions.
Let us be careful not to place our farmers in the position of sorcerer’s apprentices, to which public opinion would undoubtedly attribute the negative consequences of any generalised dissemination of GMOs. They have already sacrificed much, with animal meal and Gaucho insecticide. Let us ensure, therefore, that we do not make the continued use of traditional crop production methods so complicated that farmers will be driven to abandon them in favour of GMO production. It is up to the person who introduces a high-risk crop to assume responsibility for all the consequences of that risk. It is the person who takes the risk of possible contamination who must bear the costs of preventing and managing that risk to other crops and to the users of those crops, and who alone must shoulder the responsibility for having taken that risk.
This question of how to manage the coexistence of the various production methods is set to become an issue of vital importance in regional planning. It must be possible to have the freedom to choose specific guidelines at national or regional level. If, for example, elected representatives, farmers and others involved at regional level in a certain area want that area to be GMO-free, they must be able to decide that in complete freedom, without the Commission putting obstacles in their path in the name of heaven knows what distortion of competition which may be to a greater or lesser extent imaginary. Therefore, Mr President, we shall be voting in favour of this initiative report, which asks some valid questions on a subject which is vitally important to our society."@en1
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