English

News on seed act and GMO in Poland

20.11.2012 r.

http://poznajgmo.blogspot.com/search/label/WPR

The Polish Government still hasn’t passed/prepared an all-encompassing framework law to regulate GMOs, especially regarding the cultivation of GMO plants (release into the environment). Instead, on 9th November the so-called Seed Act passed in Parliament, where a small majority voted with the governing coalition (all opposition parties voted against it). As soon as this Act comes into force, the seed companies will introduce GM seeds onto the market, and some farmers will buy and sow them. If the Council of Ministers would not approve the regulation banning cultivation of MON810 maize and Amflora potato in time, then the cultivation of GM plants would become established in Poland and GMO products will appear on Polish tables without appropriate checks and without consumers’ knowledge.

“The President of Poland vetoed the Seed Act back in August 2011 and this stopped the introduction of official GM cultivation in our country. Currently the ruling Coalition is once again trying to allow official cultivation of GM crops, contrary to the opinion of most of Poles. This time they decided to ammend the Seed Act proposal of 5th January 2012 prepared by the President of Poland: they changed Article 139 which had preserved some articles of the former Seed Act of 26 June 2003, including prohibiting the inclusion of GM seeds in the Polish National Seed Register and a ban on trade in GM seed” said Dorota Metera, a food expert at the Green Institute.

“Currently, the ruling Coalition of the Citizens' Platform and the Peasant Party is ‘against and at the same time in favour’ of GM crop cultivation. The government’s official position indicates their aim to "make Poland a GMO-free country". At the same time the seed companies are reporting that MON810 is cultivated on an area of 3000 hectares and contrary to EU law, none of the State institutions is either controlling or monitoring it. For several years the Government has not been willing to pass any general framework GMO Act through the Parliament. And at same time many European countries (France, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Greece, Germany, Switzerland and Bulgaria) have banned cultivation of GM crops” said Dariusz Szwed, head of the Programing Council of the Green Institute. “The Government is simply ignoring the fact that the number of opponents of GMOs in the Polish Parliament, from across the political spectrum, is growing. All of them voted against the new Seed Act: the Law and Justice party, Palikot's Movement, the Social Democrats and the Solidarity of Poland Party. A dozen or so NGOs published an open letter to the President on 13th November, calling on him to take action like last year, when he vetoed the last Seed Act. His opinion was clear at the time, when he stated ‘The question of GMOs has to be regulated by an universal legal Act’.”