France suspends GM crop
Pastor Dale Morgan
Fri January 11, 2008
*France suspends GM crop*
* Story Highlights
* French government orders the suspension of a type of GM corn
* Anti-GM farmer Jose Bove and supporters end hunger strike
* Protest was to pressure government to suspend cultivation of MON810
* MON810 resists some types of insects
PARIS, France (AP) -- Militant French farmer Jose Bove and about 15
supporters called off their hunger strike in its eighth day after the
government ordered the suspension of the use of genetically modified
corn Friday.
France will suspend cultivation of MON810, the seed for the only type of
genetically modified corn now allowed in the country, until a European
Union review is conducted, Prime Minister Francois Fillon's office said.
The move was based on a recommendation this week by a
government-appointed panel calling for "the need for additional analyses
on the health and environmental effects of the genetically modified
product MON810 in the long term," Fillon's office said in a statement.
Bove and his supporters began the hunger strike January 3, saying they
hoped to pressure the government to make good on a promise in November
to suspend cultivation of MON810. He said they only drank water or
unsweetened tea during the protest.
The seed, which resists some types of insects, was authorized before a
government-ordered moratorium on genetically modified products took
effect in 1999.
Last year, it was planted in about 54,000 acres in France -- mainly in
southern farmland.
Bove rose to fame in August 1999 when he and supporters used farm
equipment to dismantle a McDonald's branch under construction in Millau,
in the foothills of France's Massif Central mountains.
He has faced repeated trials and served jail time for destroying
genetically modified crops.