Ciarán Cuffe
Question:124 Mr. Cuffe asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the way in which he plans to ensure that farmers can continue to choose to farm free from GMOs. [20257/04]
View answerTuesday, 6 July 2004
Questions (92)
Written answers
The areas where GMOs can impact on farming are in the co-existence of GM crops alongside non-GM crops and in the controls on the authorisation and labelling of GM feed. The Commission decided that co-existence should be addressed at member state level and provided a series of guidelines to assist in dealing with issues that arise. All member states, including Ireland, are in the process of drawing up strategies and best practices to provide for effective co-existence arrangements. An interdepartmental-interagency working group has been established within my Department to, inter alia, develop such strategies and best practices.
EU Regulation 1829/03 on GM food and feed which came into force last April will ensure that importers, retailers and farmers are in a better position to choose whether they want to use GM or non-GM feed from now on. Recently I signed a statutory instrument giving authorised officers of my Department the necessary powers to ensure that the new GM feed labelling legislation is complied with.