ROME, Italy (Reuters) — Italy has told the European Commission that it will ban the production of genetically modified crops under a rule that allows European Union countries to opt out of GMO cultivation.
The country’s agriculture, environment and health ministers wrote to the commission to “request to exclude cultivation of all the GMOs authorized at an EU level from all of Italian territory.”
An EU law approved in March cleared the way for new GM crops to be approved after years of deadlock. However, the law also gave countries the right to ban GM crops even after they have been approved as safe by the EC.
Germany has sent a similar letter to Brussels, and Bulgaria also said it would opt out of GMO cultivation.
