MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES STATEMENT REGARDING MEDIA ARTICLE ON GMO REGULATIONS

The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries refers to an article entitled "Lack of GMO regulations threatens Malta's crop exports to E.U." which appeared in a section of the local media.

The article is highly speculative and can only serve to alarm readers and to cause untold damage to Malta's agricultural sector and to Malta's export of agricultural crops, particularly potatoes to the E.U. countries.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the article appeared in the same week that this year's export of Malta 's potatoes to Holland started.

The article is not based on facts but merely on assumptions. The alarmist title of the article can only serve to harm Malta's trade in an agricultural crop that has been exported to the Netherlands for over 100 years, fetching a premium price for Malta's farmers.

The article bases itself on a report commissioned by the Ministry for the Environment - "Study of the Effect of compliance with the EU Regulations with Respect to Genetically Modified Organisms". The report, written by Dr. Marion Zammit-Mangion and Prof. Alex E. Felice, is quoted as having conducted a survey about the awareness of the growers (not farmers) of potatoes and importers of potato seeds. It cannot be concluded, by any stretch of the imagination, that just because growers and importers are not aware of the origin of their potato seeds, that GM potato seeds are being imported.

When a potato (or any other plant) variety is altered, whether it is done by conventional breeding or by genetic engineering, the new variety cannot be called by the same name as the original variety. All seed potato varieties imported into Malta are named varieties and all imports of potato seeds are certified by the Dutch Plant Health Authorities and controlled by the Ministry for Agriculture & Fisheries in Malta for trueness to type and plant health status.

Moreover, The Netherlands as other Member States of the EU are presently adhering to a self-imposed moratorium on the deliberate release of GM-crops, that is, on placing these modified crops on the market.

The article admits that "GM potatoes are banned by the E.U. and therefore cannot be marketed in Member States." Since Malta grows and exports to Holland only potatoes of the Sant'? and Alpha variety which originate from certified seed potatoes actually imported from the same Holland, one fails to see how Malta can "potentially be a pool for GM potatoes".

Again, there is no correlation as to the amounts of imports of glyphosate and the possibility of the presence of GM potatoes. Did the writer bother to investigate how much of this glyphosate is actually used on the potato crop? Is the writer aware that the Maltese Agriculture authorities actually advice farmers not to use Glyphosate on the potato crop? Glyphosate has a unique property that it can be translocated from the leaves to the roots and as such it is more commonly used by growers and the general public for the control of two common persistent weed species, namely bindweed and Bermuda grass, hence its wide application, rather than in potato growing.