Lyon, France (13 March 2007) – European biotech industry leaders announce a Green Biotechnology Manifesto today in Lyon, France at BioVision where industry, politicians and NGOs are gathering to discuss how biotechnologies can meet the Millennium Development Goals and the needs of developing countries.

Agricultural or “green” biotechnology is being adopted at record speed around the world - in 2006, 10.3 million farmers in 22 countries cultivated genetically modified (biotech) crops on 102 million hectares. Of the 10.3 million, 90% or 9.3 million were small, resource-poor farmers from developing countries whose increased income from biotech crops contributed to alleviate their poverty.
Planting in Europe has been much slower, but is accelerating as farmers start reaping the benefits of biotech crops. The number of hectares of biotech crops in Europe, although modest, is also growing significantly.

The Green Biotechnology Manifesto is a European perspective on green biotech and advocates five main policies to support agricultural biotech in Europe. The industry calls on decision makers to

• Fully implement the biotech crop authorization process
• Enable a European single market in seeds
• Respect other countries’ freedom to trade in commodities
• Promote coherence of policies and public information on green biotech
• Promote policies that respect developing countries.

Launching the biotech manifesto, Dr Bernward Garthoff, Chairman of the Agrifood Council of EuropaBio said: “The application of biotechnology to plant breeding has yielded benefits to farmers, the economy and the environment which are simply not possible with the more traditional approaches. These new possibilities are making an essential contribution not only to the food and animal feed security of a growing and increasingly prosperous global population, but also to the sustainable supply of renewable raw materials for industry and energy such as transport fuels.”

EuropaBio Chairman, Dr Hans Kast said: “Agricultural biotechnology offers tremendous opportunities. We have the products in place, we have the solutions to offer, but we need political action from European leaders to open the European market and offer real choice, otherwise Europe will not benefit from this technology and will be left behind.”

Source:

1. Biotech industry leaders publish Green Biotech Manifesto and set out policy challenges. (13.3.07). EuropaBio (http://www.europabio.org/ne_Greenmanifesto130307.htm)

2. Green Biotech Manifesto (13.3.07) EuropaBio (download from http://www.europabio.org/ne_Greenmanifesto130307.htm)

 

 

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