BY APRIL 2010 GMOs WILL ENTER ITALIAN AGRICULTURE - GUARANTEED BY THE STATE COUNCIL SENTENCE

Within April GMOs will enter into Italian agriculture: a sentence pronounced by the State Council obliges the Ministry of Agriculture to grant authorization, within 90 days, to Silvano Dalla Libera, agricultural operator in Pordenone and Vice President of Futuragra, to cultivate a variety of GMO corn. For Futuragra, “the aversion to biotechnology of the Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia clashes sharply with the liberal ideals upon which the actions of the government are based.

Despite the final and unequivocal sentence of the Supreme Court of administrative justice in our country, the Minister has assumed the right to advance his already negative opinion. Failure to apply the ruling would create enormous damage in Italian agriculture: about one third of our land is corn cultivations and is plagued by the corn borer, a pest that could be countered effectively by GMO corn”.

According to the Demoskopea ( an Italian market research agency) survey in March 2009, 53% of the Venetian and Friulian corn cultivators supports the cultivation of GMOs, while 28% said there was insufficient information and 20% were against it.
sentence is final. There are no more excuses to block a right that I was granted by the highest court of administrative justice, underlined Dalla Libera, “and if they continue to prevent us from exercising our right, we will not hesitate to ask for damages, that we can already quantify in 200 million euros for this planting season”.