The European Parliament has passed an amendment to regulations on organic agriculture, lowering the maximum allowable figure for accidental contamination by GMOs from 0.9 to 0.1.

Carlo Petrini, president of Slow Food International, said: “This is a very important result and one that we’ve been working towards for a long time now, both nationally, with Slow Food Italy’s entry into the GMO-free coalition, and at European level with the support of all our national associations.”

Petrini, who in the opening speech at BioFach 2007 held in Nuremberg in February called for zero tolerance, believed that last week’s vote, “marks an important step towards the Europe we’d like to see, a Europe that listens to the opinions and needs of it citizens and producers. As far as we’re concerned, we intend to reassert our positions over and over again. The next occasion to do so will be in Montpellier on 14-15 April with Vignerons d’Europe, a productive category that has a lot to say and listen to regarding organic production and the rejection of GMOs.”

Petrini concluded: “The agreement reached yesterday is a ‘technical zero’: all that remains now is to wait for the final pronouncement of the European Council of Ministers, which I hope will continue in this direction by declaring zero tolerance on GMOs in organic agriculture.”