from Ecopolis - April 30, 2014 - “Historical ruling. Italy is GMO-free. A great victory for Italian agriculture.” This is the comment by Legambiente and Greenpeace on the news that the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio rejected all the motivations of the Friulian farmer Fidenato, who insisted on planting biotech corn. The ruling, on the other hand, reaffirms the well-known precautionary principle, recalling the risk of potentially negative consequences deriving from the contamination of MON 810 corn. This ruling restores legality: no one can cultivate GMOs in Italy. A sentence that goes in the direction of what Italians think: 98% say no to GMOs. This is the outcome of the symbolic referendum organized in April by Legambiente and Greenpeace in hundreds of Italian cities, including many in Veneto. “The results of this consultation do not surprise us - says Rossella Muroni, director general of Legambiente - because it is not news that the majority of Italians are against GMOs. The Italian Government therefore undertakes during the semester of its European presidency, so that the EU adopts a new regulation to allow member states to ban GMO crops also for economic and social reasons, taking into account the reasons of all citizens who choose a healthy, quality diet, while respecting natural and social balances.
Here is the RISKS AND LIES flyer on GMOs.
The reasons given by the Friulian farmer were aimed at overthrowing the interministerial decree of August for which “the cultivation of corn varieties MON 810, coming from genetically modified seeds, is prohibited in the national territory, at least until the adoption of community measures referred to in art. 54, paragraph 3, of EC Regulation 178/2002 and in any case no later than eighteen months from the date of this measure”. To fully understand the issue, we invite you to watch the film that reconstructs the history, the activity, the aspirations of the largest seed chemical industry: Monday, May 5 at 8.45 p.m. — Barchessina room, c/o City of Limena — the last appointment of the festival “Cinecycle UomoAmbienteSocietà 2014” organized by Legambiente Limena: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO — story of a multinational that loves you very much — by M.M. Robin — (docufilm, FRA 2008 — 108 '). the film is an exceptional documentary-investigative journalist of the courageous investigative documentary Francesc Marie-
Monique Robin who sheds full light on GMOs and reveals the unscrupulous role of the American multinational, reconstructing its evolution from a chemical industry to a seed industry (read the review on ecopolis n. 415 here). After the film, Gianni Tamino, a biologist at the University of Padua, will speak to deepen and update the topics covered in the film, also in relation to the Italian regulatory framework.
Davide Sabbadin, Legambiente Veneto agriculture manager
