London (18.1.08) – For many years now, Spain has been the lead country in the EU for the cultivation of Bt-maize, a genetically-enhanced strain resistant to the European corn borer which can wreak such havoc among maize crops. Bt-maize is the only biotech. crop so far approved for commercial cultivation in the EU.

Maize growers France, too, suffer from the corn borer. Just as happened on the Brazilian-Argentinean border years ago, when Brazilian farmers spotted the advantages the Argentineans had in growing herbicide-tolerant soya prohibited in Brazil and imported the seeds, so French farmers began, three or four years ago, quite legally (since they have been approved for the whole EU) began importing Bt-maize seeds from Spain into the southwest of France , growing the maize on French soil and then taking it back for sale to Spain where there is no market differentiation between GM and non-GM maize.

So successful were they that, in the spring of 2007, French growers planted over 20,000 hectares of Bt-maize, more than three times as much as they had the previous year and second in Europe only to Spain’s 75,000 hectares. Although only about 1.5% of the total French maize production, things were going well: the maize farmers were pleased with the outcome and clearly the acreage looked set to increase year by year.

The spring of 2007 also witnessed a presidential election in France, that of Nicholas Sarkozy who had promised all manner of changes essential to the French economy which were none-the-less going to be difficult for him to enact in the face of conservative French attitudes to change.

Among his problems was (and is) the wide variety of deeply-rooted vested interests, nowhere more so than in agriculture. Perhaps the president felt that he might gain a measure of popular sympathy to ease the way for his essential economic reforms if he could throw a sop to the doubters to soften things up.

One of the entrenched positions most publicly expressed was that of M. Jose Bové who once set fire to certain fast food stores in a vigorous protest supporting his antipathy to what he perceived as the invasion of France by foreign food tastes. A French anti-globalisation activist who has been convicted of ripping up GM crops in southern France, M. Bové last week launched a hunger strike to press for a year-long ban on genetically modified crops. He is not alone; there are others who agree with him and support his actions.

Placating that anti-GM feeling, often in Europe closely coupled with an anti-American and anti-corporatist stance, might have seemed a good way for the president to acquire allies in the tough fights ahead. So, in September, we began to hear noises that France might ban Bt-maize (1); it was a convenient time to do so because Monsanto, the producer of the MO810 strain, had to request a renewal of its licence early in 2008.

Later in the year, the noises grew louder – much louder. At the end of the “Grenelle de l’environment” (national conference on the environment), M. Sarkozy announced that France will ban GM crops from the country’s fields and that no new GM crops would be planted commercially until the government had received the results of an evaluation by a new authority on GMOs set to be launched this year (2).

While the president was still mulling whether or not he really should ban Bt-maize, out came a report of a report in which scientists were said to have expressed doubts about the environmental safety of Bt-maize. People have been talking about the report and objecting to it but so far CropGen has not been able to locate the report itself. On January 9th, France's Provisional High Authority on GMOs said it had "serious doubts" as to the safety of MON 810, pointing to what it described as "a certain number of new scientific facts relating to a negative impact on flora and fauna." The authority’s chairman, who also holds a seat in the Senate, said evidence had emerged that MON 810 had an effect on insects, a species of earthworm and micro-organisms.

By January 10th, 12 of the 15 scientists who had compiled the authority's report issued a statement complaining that their findings had been misrepresented. They said their initial report (presumably the one CropGen cannot find) had not used the words "serious doubts" or "negative" concerning the latest evidence on GM crops. They also complained they had not been allowed time to carry out a "fuller expertise" of MON 810 (3).

Then the balloon really went up as not only the scientists but also the pro-GM farmers and the animal feed industry joined in. The French Association for Scientific Information thought that none of the arguments brought forward can be considered new or severe (so justifying the activation of a safeguard clause), denounced the confusion which is systematically maintained between "exposure” and "impact", and reaffirmed both that the scientific uncertainties on the safety of genetically modified maize in Europe are nothing but “imaginary, even deceitful, uncertainties both from an environmental as well as a food chain point of view" and that, without denying the importance of biovigilance when it comes to cultivating Bt maize varieties, wanting to prohibit the use of it by French farmers has no scientific justification whatsoever. For good measure they denounced the political instrumentalisation of the scientists appointed to take part in the "Committee of formation of a High Authority on GM products" (4). Some scientists have organised a petition in favour of planting GM crops (5).

EuropaBio, a Europe-wide biotech. trade association, pointed out the environmentally unfriendly aspect of the French decision, emphasising that in France, Europe's largest maize grower, suspension of biotech. maize plantings will intensify the environmental footprint of maize production by increasing the amount of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The cultivation of more than 20,000 hectares of Bt maize in France in 2007 saved the use of 29,000 litres of fuel, 8,800 litres of insecticide and 86,500 kg of CO2, whilst increasing maize production by 25,000 tonnes. Growing GM maize thus boosted French farmers' income by € 1.5 million (6).

French farmers also expressed their concern: one of them accused the government of caving in to the anti-GM protests of Bové while the National Assembly president said that decisions to ban GMOs should be based on "irrefutable" evidence, implicitly criticizing the government for basing its decision on a panel's controversial opinion (7). Jean-Michel Lemetayer, president of the FNSEA (National Federation of Farm Unions), called prime minister Fillon's announcement “surprising and shocking. The decision was very political to please a number of people including some on a hunger strike,'' he said on France Info radio (9). “France can survive without GMOs, but it means we will protect our crops solely by chemical means and take the risk of depending on more imports in the future,'' Christophe Terrain, president of AGPM, told France Info radio.

While the anti-GM activists have promised to remain vigilant, their pro-GM opponents described the government decision as "totally incomprehensible". Their spokesman Philippe Gracien said, "it seems that the fate of this corn has been written once the Grenelle of the Environment was over. It's a mismanagement" and "demagoguery has triumphed over agricultural innovation which now will be without France " (8). Others described the episode as un beau gâchis! (10).That might be rendered as a right mess although there are other picturesque phrases in English which more accurately capture the mood.

The latest to come our way are signs of backtracking by the government. While prime minister Francois Fillon had said recently that France would activate a "safeguard clause" in European law to suspend the commercial use of MON 810, a maize developed by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto, environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo told the National Assembly that the clampdown on MON 810 was a precaution that would only last until the release of an European re-evaluation of the crop in the coming months. “It is”, he said, “a precautionary measure that applies for a certain period lasting until the setting up of a European stance (on the MON 810)." M. Borloo became quite enthusiastic, insisting that biotechnologies were crucial for France, especially for its farming sector: "In terms of agriculture it is doubly crucial for us. We have trouble feeding six billion people, nine billion tomorrow, with less water resources, less arable land and probably less productive soil. It is crucial for France, which is the first agri-food producer in Europe, it is crucial for employment and it is crucial for our country's attractiveness”, he said (11).

The Spanish do not much like the proposed ban by the French government either….(12).

Sources:

1. France may ban Monsanto GMO maize – minister. Reuters (24.10.07) (http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSL2460787620071024?pageNumber=1)

2. Sarkozy suspends GM crops. Euro Biotech News, vol. 6 (11-12), page 20 (December 2007)

3. Sarkozy mulls decision to bar transgenic corn. Agence France Presse (10.1.08) (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j753AuJA0UQZc6_JLWSt0NVmR1dg)

4. Mon810: l'activation de la clause de sauvegarde n'est pas scientifiquement justifiée! Association Française pour l'Information Scientifique (10.1.08) (http://www.pseudo-sciences.org/spip.php?article81)

(5) Cette pétition est initiée par le collectif des semeurs volontaires et des citoyens solidaires des cultures OGM. Cultiver des OFM est un choix! Agissons pour preserver cette liberte en 2008! (no date) (http://www.pourlalibertedechoisirlesculturesogm.com/readPetition.action)

(6) French biotech crop decision environmentally unfriendly. EuropaBio (14.1.08) (http://www.europabio.org)

(7) Nick Antonovics and Nicolas Ficho. French govt move to ban Monsanto GMO draws fire. Reuters (13.1.08) (http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSPAB00373820080113)

(8) Johanna Decorse. Les anti-OGM restent mobilisés et les pro dénoncent un "beau gâchis” Yahoo France (12.1.08) (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:XLiKh-pip4cJ:fr.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080112/tfr-environnement-ogm-synthese-56633fe_1.html+un+beau+g%C3%A2chis!+Yahoo+France+Johanna+Decorse&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk)
(9) Tara Patel. French farmers criticize ban on Monsanto's corn seed. Bloomberg (12.1.08) (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aKO082yMxGxg&refer=europe)

(10) Maïs génétiquement modifié: Un beau gâchis! CP Platforme (12.1.08)

(11) Sybille de La Hamaide. France defends GMO crop ban, says temporary. Yahoo News (15.1.08) (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080115/sc_nm/france_gmo_dc;_ylt=A0WTcUxp9IxHinAAGR4PLBIF)

(12) Spain rejects the “safety clause” by France to GM maize. EFEAGRO (16.1.08) (http://www.portalbesana.es/jsp/lstNoticias.jsp?id=1&ch=4&ca=-1&cu=-1&v=1&cm=&sc=&cd=22548)

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