EU Court of Justice Supports Farmers' Right to Plant GM Crops

The European Court of Justice declared that the additional national authorization procedures for the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops in the member states of the European Union is unlawful, thus co-existence measures are not mandatory to grow GM plants.

The ruling particularly concerns a GM crop which was approved for planting in Europe but the rights of farmers to choose this crop were denied in practice by some bureaucratic barriers created by the Italian authorities.The Court of Justice explained that the cultivation of GM crops such as the MON 810 maize varieties cannot be made subject to a national authorization procedure when the use and marketing of those varieties are allowed, after all.

For more information, visit http://www.europabio.org/agricultural/press/european-court-justice-confirms-farmers-right-cultivate-gm-crops. To access the online document of the Ruling of the European Court of Justice on cultivating GM crops, visit http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=126437&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=1195160.