O.G.M.: letter from UPIbio to the Governor of Friuli Serracchiani

H.E. Governor of the FVG Region

Debora Avv. Serracchiani

Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia, 1

34121 Trieste

Fax 0403773702

Subject: GMO contamination alert in Friuli



We learn with amazement from our Friulian members that the Region, with suspicious promptness, is about to enact regional rules of coexistence between GMO and traditional crops and thus allow a handful of 400 clearly minority farmers, from the next imminent planting, to legalize their position. With brazenness with respect to an inter-ministerial decree that prohibits its cultivation throughout Italy for 18 months. We therefore note that in FVG we forcibly want to create an Italian, a promiscuous territory at the expense of the majority of Friulian farmers, primarily the organic ones, as well as most of the end users averse to food and GMO crops, as evidenced by the collections collected in the 8,000 signed online petition promoted by the members of Aprobio Friuli. Our members therefore expect damage to the image of the Region by attentive tourists (who still see FVG as a healthy and uncontaminated territory), but to the same agricultural producers who will see their products equated to GMOs. With possible boycott actions by attentive or diligent consumers Associations with the slogan “” and If you don't want to risk eating GMOs, don't consume Friulano, which obviously we hope will not happen.

The recent investigations of the Forestry Corps on contamination in fields adjacent to the cultivation of Mon 810 corn confirm, if necessary, the difficult and impossible coexistence with GMOs due to vertical and horizontal genetic pollution in the territory and among the pronouns that over time will pollute the entire genetic heritage built over the millennia by nature through supply chains. Those who talk about freedom to sow GMOs and collect 400 signatures in this regard, in fact, in reality, prevent conventional and organic farmers from practicing it and are responsible for the destruction of a local agri-food heritage with the clear objective of handing everything into the hands of foreign multinationals that own the seeds. At the request of our members and after consultation with our lawyers, we believe that the Inter-Ministerial Decree of 12 July last is in the light of valid Community legislation (art. 34 of the Regulation, therefore fully EC 1829/2003 and articles 53 and 54 of the EC Regulation 178/2002), operational and current (up to the limit of the expected 18 months). We do not understand the reasons why your Regional Council decided not to implement any measure against the illegal cultivation of mon 810 corn (as shown by the ERSA records) and their managers. Even the Regional Forestry Corps Service guarantees those who are prosecuted that: “Cultivation. Conversely, omitting to recall and reiterate the ban on corn, mon 810 is to be considered “free” its cultivation within the terms provided for by the aforementioned Interministerial Decree of 12 July. In the face of these inexplicable omissive behaviors of the FVG Region, which are also strongly contradictory with the “political image” with which it would like to accredit its voting citizens and to all of Italy, as a contrary and free of GMOs, UPBIO member section of FEDERBIO, representing Friulian organic farmers (APROBIO Friuli) who feel betrayed, threatened and damaged in their legitimate professional, commercial and image interests, by the contaminations detected and documented by the State Forestry Corps, and by those which will eventually be added in the case of repeated sowing and cultivation of mon 810 corn next spring.

UPBIO - National Union of Organic and Biodynamic Producers FederBio

Via Livenza, 6 - 00198 - ROME Italy/PHONE + 39 06 444.095.8 — FAX 0698383349

EMAIL: presidente.upbio@federbio.it/www.upbio.it/C.F.97678390580

HE ASKS FIRMLY

To the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, to the Council and to you personally, with the office of President, to issue as soon as possible and in any case, rather than rules of coexistence, a continuous and urgent Ordinance that, until the duration of the Decree, prohibits the cultivation of corn mon 810 throughout the regional, inter-ministerial territory of 12 July 2013. We also urge that this urgent Ordinance be accompanied and reinforced also by strict pecuniary and criminal sanctioning rules for possible non-compliance with the prohibition. In this regard, we remind you that the Ministry of the Environment and the Protection of the Territory and the Sea, in responding to the immediate question presented by the Honourable Pellegrino and others, on 14 November 2013, has already clarified that, in the case of the GMO crops being discussed, the sanctions provided for by Legislative Decree No. 70 of 2005 are applicable, “.. , with particular regard to cases in which the authorization is “possible to assume the Decree of 12 July 2013”... refused, revoked or suspended... as a”. measure to substantially suspend community authorization. Hoping for a prompt and total acceptance of what UPBIO has requested, we reserve the right to take all necessary actions, even at the registered office, in order to protect the legitimate and violated interests of Friulian and National organic farms.

With observance

President Michele Monetta Rome 26 November 2013

UPBIO - National Union of Organic and Biodynamic Producers FederBio

Via Livenza, 6 - 00198 - ROME Italy/PHONE + 39 06 444.095.8 — FAX 0698383349

EMAIL: presidente.upbio@federbio.it/www.upbio.it/C.F.97678390580