French authorities have announced the government will reinstate a ban on Monsanto’s genetically modified MON810 maize over the coming week, in order to prevent GM grain from being sown this season.

The announcement follows an ongoing spat between the agrochemical giant and the French government, which was reignited last year when two senior European courts found a French ban of the GM corn, the only GM crop permitted for cultivation in the EU by law, to be illegal and ordered its repeal. Since that time the French authorities have pledged to do their utmost to ensure the crop is not planted in France, citing unexplored environmental risks, and Monsanto has said it plans not to sell the maize in France for the foreseeable future.

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The latest overtures to the European Commission by the French government, which last month asked the Commission to suspend planting of the maize, used for animal feed in the bloc, may be an attempt by the Sarkozy administration to secure votes in the upcoming presidential elections; as the French public remain fiercely opposed to GM, a quest to outlaw the maize will be well received and may be remembered at the polling booths next month.  

In the meantime, the French government is set to introduce a ban on the maize within its own borders, based on safety concerns it put to the Commission last month and the outcome of a public consultation. The government claims studies conducted by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) show GM maize poses "significant risks for the environment"; the studies were conducted on "BT11" maize, but French authorities claim the EFSA’s conclusions also apply to MON810.

In Europe, opinion remains divided over whether GM technology represents an invaluable tool in the fight for global food security or a dangerous misadventure; last week Phil Bloomer, director of policy and campaigns at Oxfam told delegates at the Soil Association conference in London that the organic movement should rethink its stance on GM. He warned, “Many small farmers do not have 15 years to wait in order to breed into their wheat the soil nutrition efficiency they need. GM can speed up that process.”

However, whilst the technology remains, for the most part, the intellectual property of large agribusinesses whose only loyalties are to their shareholders, anti-GM activists maintain that research spending would be better used in developing agroecological solutions and low carbon farming systems, rather than investing in “band-aids on monocultures.”

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