The European Food Safety Authority will keep UK experts in its ranks despite Brexit, because science does not recognise borders "and we want to have the best people", the EU food watchdog chief told EURACTIV.com in an exclusive interview.
Being equipped with the right methods to assess industry’s rapidly changing innovation will be a key challenge for the European Food Safety Agency, (EFSA), Bernhard Url, the EU food watchdog's chief, told EURACTIV.com in a wide-ranging interview.
The requirements of food production can be met without GMOs but we should not eliminate the broader benefits that biotechnologies can provide, Daniel Gustafson told EURACTIV.com in an interview.
The massive need for investment in projects of public interest in developing countries cannot be met by the public sector alone, this is why the involvement of the private sector in reaching the SDGs is key, the European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development told EURACTIV.com in an exclusive interview.
Ethicists, humanists, lawyers and patients should come together to understand the risk of data in healthcare and whether patients are willing to take that risk, Pierre Meulien told EURACTIV.com.
Studies on the safety of GMOs, glyphosate or other pesticides could enjoy higher levels of trust from the general public if there were stronger guarantees that the science behind them is really independent, says Bernhard Url, executive director of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
The European executive will reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) by the end of 2017. José Bové and Éric Andrieu argue for an agricultural system that puts the environment, human health and small businesses first. EURACTIV’s partner Ouest France reports.
European politicians support a great deal of scientific research but they often do not pay attention to the results if they are “politically unwelcome”, Nobelist Richard Roberts told EURACTIV.com.
Agroforestry is a "back to the future" concept, advocating a return to the origins of farming —trees and fields— rather than the modern concept of huge monocultures, says Tony Simons.
If new plant breeding techniques fall under GMO legislation, SMEs in Europe will be severely hit, Dr Teresa Babuscio said in an interview with EURACTIV.com
EXCLUSIVE / Tom Vilsack, the United States Secretary of Agriculture, said that Washington “respects” Europe’s claim for geographic protection of food in the transatlantic trade talks. But he said this should not prevent similar US products from being marketed under brands used on the American market.
An estimated 40% of all the agricultural land in the world today is used to grow feed grains for beef production, a trend that is set to worsen with the rise of the middle class in Asia, warns Jeremy Rifkin.
SPECIAL REPORT/ In a wide-ranging exclusive interview, Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan shared his vision of how the EU and developing countries could greatly improve global food security togther, through innovation and sustainable farming practices.
The EU is not going to change its food safety legislation under the negotiation for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which means that GMOs can be marketed in the EU only once they have been authorised, and beef from the USA would be marketable in Europe only if it is hormone free, Ignacio Garcia Bercero of the European Commission told EURACTIV Czech Republic.
Policymakers are going to need to take advantage of the full range of possibilities if they are going to meet the food security challenge. But encouraging people to domesticate local plant varieties is both simple and cost-effective, argues agroforestry expert Patrick Worms.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership the EU and the US are trying to establish is being called the "mother of all bilateral trade agreements", but negotiators must jump the potentially damaging hurdles of GMOs and hormone-raised meat and avoid rocking consumer confidence in either market, says Pekka Pesonen.
Genetically modified crops can provide solutions to famine and malnutrition in developing countries and it would be "unethical not to use the technology when other approaches have failed," says Anne Glover.
Evaluating risk requires a balance of quantitative assessment and regulatory review. But often in the European Union, there is a “misuse” of the precautionary principle to appease national of political interests, says Ragnar Löfstedt.
Politicians sometimes shy away from science, but they should be clear about why they reject scientific evidence in future, the European Commission’s first chief scientific advisor told EURACTIV. In an interview, she says GMOs are a good example of where policy has trumped science.
The world faces a severe food security crisis as a result of climate change, soil erosion and population growth. Food security is a much greater threat to national security than armed aggression, Lester Brown told EURACTIV in this exclusive interview on the fringes of the 'Forum for the Future of Agriculture'.
While the Union's cautious approach to granting market authorisation to new technology applications like GMOs or products derived from nanotechnology has meant that EU has not suffered from any major backlash, it could also mean the bloc is missing out on major opportunities to improve its competitiveness, argued a policy analyst from a Brussels-based think tank in an interview with EURACTIV.com.
European nations, which use more than twice the amount of resources available on their territories, need to factor ecological assets into their national accounting systems in order to prevent ecological bankruptcy, says Mathis Wackernagel of the Global Footprint Network. He spoke with EURACTIV in an interview.
Amid persistent hostile European public opinion towards GM food, the executive director of green biotechnology at EuropaBio, Nathalie Moll, argues that GMOs should be authorised based on science and not public perception, and that member states need to avoid mixing authorisation of a product and people's right to choose whether or not to buy it.
