News - GMOs - Slow Food International

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Agri-Food Policy Under Pressure Before 2024 EU Elections

29 August 2023

In this article, we tell you all you need to know about what’s coming up in Brussels this Autumn, and what you can do to help us push our politicians to make the right choice. The European elections are right around the corner (June 2024), putting extra time pressure on EU food and agriculture …

400.000+ Europeans Oppose Agro-industry’s Push for Deregulating New GMOs

13 February 2023

On February 7, a coalition of 50+ organisations from 17 EU member states today delivered a petition to the European Commission demanding to keep the new generation of genetically modified organisms ‘regulated and labelled’. The petition ran from April to November 2022 and received 420.000 signatures. New genetically modified organisms (GMOs) like CRISPR/CAS, are not technically …

Keep the ban on GMOs in Kenya!

13 January 2023

For the agribusiness, the end always justifies the means. For decades, giant agricultural companies have pressured governments across the globe to loosen Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)1 regulations and make it easier for these substances to make it into our food unlabeled. The Slow Food position is that GMOs are not needed to feed the word, and work against efforts to make agriculture more sustainable. From South Korea to Uruguay, our grassroot movement works to prevent GMOs from entering our fields and ending up on our forks. Our most recent battle in this regard took place in Kenya last year.

Busting the Myths on New GMOs

16 November 2022

As the European Union is preparing to decide on whether and how to deregulate new GMOs, we look at the most frequent claims made by the biotechnology and seed industry to promote new GMOs and their deregulation. Spoiler: they’re misleading, if not deceptive. Myth #1: Changes brought by new GM techniques (or “genome editing”) …

EU Member States Show Support for the Deregulation of New GMOs

7 June 2021 Madeleine Coste & Alice Poiron

Last week, EU Member States welcomed the alarming Commission’s study on “New Genomic Techniques”, which suggests certain new GMOs to be exempt from rigorous safety assessments. Slow Food sees this disappointing conclusion as a proof of the EU’s resort to biotechnologies as a silver bullet for current food system problems and calls on the EU …

European Commission Opens the Door to New GMOs

3 May 2021

European Commission backtracks and opens the door to the deregulation of new GMOs, putting citizens and farmers’ freedom of choice at risk Slow Food is deeply alarmed by the European Commission’s conclusions from the study on “new genomic techniques” which opens the door to the deregulation of new GMOs, ignoring the precautionary principle. “Through the EU Green …

UN showcases the Impossible Burger: A reaction from Gilles Luneau

6 October 2020 MADELEINE COSTE

The UN Climate Change recently sent a tweet about Impossible Foods, who, one year ago, was awarded a United Nations Global Climate Action Award. The tech start–up that invented the “Impossible Burger”, a plant-based alternative to the regular beef patty, was rewarded by the UN Climate Change’s “Planetary Health” program which seeks to recognize and …

Free seeds and South America without Transgenic Crops

8 July 2020

With the wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the large agro-industry companies, along with governments in the Andean region, have been pushing for even stronger cultivation of the GMOs portraying it as a way to survive or create jobs or production. South American Slow Food Network, composed of ten countries in the region, has been …

South Africa’s Agriculture Minister Rejects Monsato’s GM Maize Seed

28 November 2019

Amidst the clamor that surrounds Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) globally, a small but significant triumph panned out in South Africa last month. The country’s Agriculture Minister, Thoko Didiza, upheld the decision by the Executive Council to reject American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation, Monsato’s request for the commercial cultivation of its allegedly drought-tolerant MON87460 x …

Australian Federal Government and the Opposition Sign Off on Uncontrolled Genetic Experiment

18 November 2019

Slow Food in Australia is deeply disappointed that the Federal Government and the Labour party ignored calls from farmers, organic food producers and agricultural exporters to disallow amendments to the Gene Technology Regulations, submitting Australians to a nationwide genetic experiment. Both parties failed in the Senate to support the Greens’ motion disallowing amendments to the …