{"id":39877,"date":"2014-02-24T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=39877"},"modified":"2015-05-05T22:11:05","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:11:05","slug":"despite-majority-opposition-gmo-corn-gets-green-light-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/02\/despite-majority-opposition-gmo-corn-gets-green-light-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite Majority Opposition, GMO Corn Gets Green Light in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Corporations, backed by influential lobbyists and western governments, dealt major blows this month against activists who are fighting to limit the cultivation of genetically modified organisms<\/a> (GMOs).<\/i><\/p>\n

On Feb. 11, 2014 the European Commission gave DuPont Pioneer the green light to freely grow insecticidal corn, also known as TC1507.\u00a0Nineteen of the European Union\u2019s 28 states voted against the cultivation and openly criticized the commission, which, in 2005, concluded the corn was safe to import and consume in Europe, reports\u00a0Food Freedom News.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe European Parliament, the majority of member states and 80% of citizens do not want GMOs in Europe,\u201d said French activist and politician\u00a0Jose Bove in a statement<\/a>. Bove continued saying it was \u201cinconceivable\u201d and \u201cpolitical\u201d of the commission to approve the corn.<\/p>\n

In response, French politicians are continuing their fight with new legislation that would ban genetically modified corn within the country.<\/p>\n

U.S. sees similar trend<\/b><\/p>\n

Monsanto, the world\u2019s largest seed company, had similar success when it spent $9 million to promote the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act, which was signed into law in by President Obama in 2011.<\/p>\n

The law doesn\u2019t address\u00a0the food safety risks of pesticide residue or genetically modified crops, but it does tighten water quality levels for smaller farms that typically don\u2019t grow GMO food, according to Food Freedom News.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe 1,200 page act was designed to put small family farms out of business,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Michael Tabor in a recent Farm-to-Consumer interview<\/a>. \u201cMost farmers irrigate their fields from nearby streams. Now those streams have to be tested on a weekly basis.\u201dAt $87.50 per test, the cost of doing business has now increased by as much as $5,000.<\/p>\n

Chemical farms growing biotech crops follow more lenient pollution regulations, added Tabor.<\/p>\n

In a recent standoff, protestors, with signs in hand<\/a>, converged at the Monsanto headquarters in suburban St. Louis, MO during the company\u2019s annual investors meeting in support of two shareholder resolutions that questioned the level of contamination passed onto non-GMO\u00a0crops and requested the seed giant end its fight against mandatory labels on foods containing GMO ingredients,\u00a0reports Reuters.<\/a><\/p>\n

The resolutions failed by considerable margins and 11 protestors were arrested after attempting to disrupt traffic near the Monsanto gates.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ecowatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Feb. 11, 2014 the European Commission gave DuPont Pioneer the green light to freely grow insecticidal corn, also known as TC1507. Nineteen of the European Union\u2019s 28 states voted against the cultivation and openly criticized the commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organic-gmo-genetic-engineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}