Summary of newsmakers of the previous day – 29.10. 2007

Amendment of law on agriculture and SZIF will simplify life to entrepreneurs

An amendment of law on agriculture and on the State Agricultural Intervention Fund (SZIF) which the Minister of Agriculture submitted today was passed by the government. A substance of the amendment are enactments on a possibility to forgive a penalty to entrepreneurs for failure to observe budget discipline and a regulation concerning a return of subsidy from means of the European Agricultural Fund for rural development, and a penalty to the State Agricultural Intervention Fund. In the matter of procedures of transformation of the Subsidiary and Guarantee Rural and Forestry Fund, a.s. (PGRLF), the novel recommends conservation of the present form of join-stock company owned by the state in 100 %, first of all because there is no other subject which would take over activities and obligations of the PGRLF.

GMO: French president Sarkozy froze growing of GM crops

Except Hungary this GM corn of the firm MANSANTO is forbidden also in Austria (3), Poland (4) and in Greece (5). These countries give reasons for the imposed bans among others that there is no proper monitoring plan which is required for GM crops by European legislative. German authorities forbade sale of seeds for sowing of GM corn MON 810 in spring 2007 regarding the fact that the present monitoring plan does not enable to reveal risks proved by new scientific studies (6). Switzerland on base of results of referendum enunciated a five-year moratorium for growing of all GM crops (7).

Organization BIO appealed France to reassess ban of GMO

The Organization for Biotechnological Industry (BIO) appealed the French president Nicolas Sarkozy to reassess his plan for a temporary stopping of sawing of genetically modified crops (GMO) in France. An American biotechnological laboratory Monsanto has expressed its disagreement with the decision already before. Sarkozy introduced a new plan for environment conservation at the end of last week according to which GMO crops do not have to be sow in the country until the government obtains results of a new research which should evaluate the total impact of these crops. It could be ready at about break of this and next year. Nevertheless the present decision should not influence farmers because corn is sown in spring.

Czechs grow almost the most of genetically modified corn

The amount of genetically modified foods grew in the EU increased by 77 percent this year. According to British BBC which published the information above all the modified corn is guilty of it. This year more than thousand kilometers squared of genetically modified corn was harvested. It is grown mainly in Spain, but also in France and the Czech Republic. The CR takes the third place in the EU. According to an organization GMO - Compass modified corn was grown in the CR on 5000 ha of land. From the Czech Statistic Office's data it results that approximately 5,4 percent of all Czech corn is genetically modified.