Lyon, France
March 13, 2007
European biotech industry leaders
announce a Green
Biotechnology Manifesto today in Lyon, France at BioVision
where industry, politicians and NGOs are gathering to discuss
how biotechnologies can meet the Millennium Development Goals
and the needs of developing countries.
Agricultural or “green” biotechnology is being adopted at record
speed around the world - in 2006, 10.3 million farmers in 22
countries cultivated genetically modified (biotech) crops on 102
million hectares. Of the 10.3 million, 90% or 9.3 million were
small, resource-poor farmers from developing countries whose
increased income from biotech crops contributed to alleviate
their poverty.
Planting in Europe has been much slower, but is accelerating as
farmers start reaping the benefits of biotech crops. The number
of hectares of biotech crops in Europe, although modest, is also
growing significantly.
The Green Biotechnology Manifesto is a European perspective on
green biotech and advocates five main policies to support
agricultural biotech in Europe. The industry calls on decision
makers to:
- Fully implement the
biotech crop authorization process
- Enable a European single
market in seeds
- Respect other countries’
freedom to trade in commodities
- Promote coherence of
policies and public information on green biotech
- Promote policies that
respect developing countries
Launching the biotech manifesto,
Dr Bernward Garthoff, Chairman of the Agrifood Council of
EuropaBio said: “The
application of biotechnology to plant breeding has yielded
benefits to farmers, the economy and the environment which are
simply not possible with the more traditional approaches. These
new possibilities are making an essential contribution not only
to the food and animal feed security of a growing and
increasingly prosperous global population, but also to the
sustainable supply of renewable raw materials for industry and
energy such as transport fuels.”
EuropaBio Chairman, Dr Hans Kast said: “Agricultural
biotechnology offers tremendous opportunities. We have the
products in place, we have the solutions to offer, but we need
political action from European leaders to open the European
market and offer real choice, otherwise Europe will not benefit
from this technology and will be left behind.”
Link to Green Biotech Manifesto –
www.greenbiotech-manifesto.org
For more information, please visit –
http://www.europabio.org/ne_Greenmanifesto130307.htm
EuropaBio, the European Association for Bioindustries, has 78
direct members operating Worldwide, 12 associate members and 5
bioregions as well as 25 national biotechnology associations
representing some 1800 small and medium sized enterprises
involved in research and development, testing, manufacturing and
distribution of biotechnology products. |
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