"Do we really wish to have a science-based society or should we let
ourselves be governed by prejudices and misconceptions?" ask Roberto Defez,
a molecular microbiologist at the Italian National Research Council, and
Dennis Eriksson, a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural
Sciences. They asked this question in their article in Euractiv, which was
published after the EU court ruled that prejudices on GM foods are
unfounded.

In the article, they narrated the story of two farmers in Northeastern Italy
who wanted to cultivate GM maize. Giorgio Fidenato, one of the farmers, had
complained that Italy had denied him the right to grow GM maize (MON 810)
because of an Italian law passed in 2013. On September 13, the Court of
Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a judgment that the Italian
law had no legal basis and thus was invalid.

"This sentence is a milestone. GMOs have always been a psychodrama in
Europe. After years of controversy among the EU member states, the EU in
2015 lifted the white flag and with the Directive 2015/412 handed over to
the individual countries the decision whether or not to allow cultivation of
MON810 or any future GMOs approved for cultivation in the EU?The CJEU
judgment has now presented a great opportunity to start recovering a
rational, science-based approach. The technology to produce GMOs is already
old and mainstream. Emerging genome editing technology adds to the diversity
of the breederīs toolbox and provides easy, rapid, precise and powerful
means to reduce pesticide inputs as well as help plants to face climate
change," the researchers concluded in their article.

[www.euractiv.com]
-case-for-a-knowledge-based-society/