As a reader and as a citizen, I was truly dismayed to read, this morning, the pro-GMO position taken by life senator Elena Cattaneo and then an appeal by 716 farmers (out of a total of 1,600,000, that is 0.0004% of Italian farmers) who invoke the senator: a tiny minority that would like to sow transgenic plants in open fields despite the ban in force since 2000, precisely when I was Minister of Agriculture, to protect environmental biodiversity and the livelihoods of the overwhelming majority of farmers. All of this on the eve of the Council of State hearing which, tomorrow, must address the appeal brought by the very few pro-GMO farmers who were already defeated before the TAR in a highly detailed and well-reasoned ruling on the risks of GMOs. Quite a pressure to put on the judges.

Between 70 and 90% of Italian citizens and farmers are aligned in favour of GMO-free production, and among those who opposed their cultivation before the TAR were Coldiretti, Aiab and Fondazione Univerde — all of whom prevailed.

Let us get to the substance. Everyone should, first and foremost, speak about what they know personally, or at least be well informed, rather than about what they know second-hand.

The senator, however, states at the outset that agricultural GMOs are "not her specific field", since she is known to work in medical, not agricultural, research; she in fact says that she uses "other transgenic species (fish, mice…)" in her experiments. And there would also be much to discuss about the scientific validity of experiments on animals (I have personally been committed for years to overcoming the barbarity of vivisection). Thus, the attack against supposed "prejudices about crops" is launched by someone who states at the outset that she does not work in agriculture.

It seems like a carbon copy of the so-called "Nobel laureates' march" outside the Ministry of Agriculture in February 2001, when Professor Rita Levi Montalcini was induced to sign a pro-GMO appeal after being told that the government wanted to block medical research. I spoke with her in the presence of the then Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, and she understood that the agricultural issue is a very different matter.

Medical research in the laboratory follows safety protocols, whereas sowing GMOs in open fields, even solely for research purposes, poses obvious risks of contamination.

We appointed a panel of experts to investigate whether open-field sowing could be carried out without risk, and after months they found no safe solution. I also issued a challenge to GMO supporters, asking them to find an insurance company willing to insure neighbouring farmers against the risks of GMO contamination.
They found no company in the world willing to insure against that risk.
For the simple reason that GMO contamination is evidently a certainty.

To speak of GMOs in the agricultural field, as opposed to the medical or pharmacological field, one needs to have a holistic vision of the problem and consider all the consequences that may arise from it.

It is not true that those who are opposed have ideological prejudices about GMOs; they are simply applying a scientific principle: the precautionary principle.

I am often remembered as the minister who ordered the closure of experimental fields with GMO plants, but those fields had no adequate systems to prevent pollen from drifting undisturbed across the world to fertilise wild parent plants, with all the resulting consequences. Thirteen years on from that decision, I am convinced I did the right thing, and indeed no minister, whether of the right or the left, has since approved any experimental field.

But, unfortunately, Senator Cattaneo's contribution is peppered with half-truths. She writes: "I find no evidence that GMOs are more harmful or risky for the environment than conventional or organic crops." And yet reservations have been expressed by the Italian Society of Ecology in a document also available online, which states that "The increase in agricultural production attributable to these GMOs is minimal, if not non-existent, the only so-called 'advantage' being the possibility of indiscriminately using large quantities of herbicide without damaging the cultivated species. But GMOs may also pose a danger to the functioning of ecosystems, since their introduction is entirely analogous to the release of exotic species, a practice that has brought some benefits in the recent and distant past, but also a great deal of harm, both biological and economic in nature." In short, the Italian Society of Ecology points out that GMOs represent a danger to biodiversity and, as everyone knows, biodiversity is the foundation of life… Without biodiversity there is no life!

What is more, incredibly, the senator proposes to sow with GMOs… for "research" purposes — not a few small fields, but as many as 30,000 hectares! That is, as she writes, the equivalent of 50,000 football pitches. And does she really think that in this way other fields cannot be contaminated?

She writes that GMOs "have reduced the use of insecticides". This claim, unfortunately, remains entirely to be verified, since, as even some scientists who favour the introduction of GMOs have pointed out (Prof. Scarascia Mugnozza, Prof. Sala, etc.), over the long term phytophagous insects (the European corn borer) develop genetic resistance to the Bt toxin (in the USA "Refuge Areas" for insects have to be set up, a practice that is impracticable here) and other insects move in to occupy the ecological niche vacated by the corn borer (Diabrotica virginifera, Helicoverpa zea, etc.).

She then writes that 700 farmers would like to sow. But, as I have already said, according to the most recent census there are over 1.6 million farmers in Italy and almost unanimously they want a GMO-free Italy. It may perhaps be no coincidence that organic farming, by not using pesticides, causes economic harm to the very same multinational companies that produce both GMO seeds and pesticides.

Organic farming is accused of allowing the presence of mycotoxins, but I would like to point out that using this argument to push GMOs through is a manipulation that does not hold up, especially when one considers that in the USA, where GMO plants are widely used, the permitted level of aflatoxins in milk is 10 times higher than that allowed in European Union countries (in the USA the limit for aflatoxin M1 in milk is 0.5 ppb, which is 10 times the EU limit of 0.05 ppb). Perhaps, then, it is not true that the use of GMO plants, with particular reference to Bt maize, could allow a reduction in the mycotoxin content of maize grain; perhaps other strategies are needed.

As for world hunger and the ethical and religious aspects of GMOs, given that according to the FAO enough food is produced for 12 billion people — well above the 7 billion currently inhabiting the planet — I personally prefer to draw on the words of Father Bartolomeo Sorge S.I.: "In a democratic society, it is crucial to achieve broad popular consensus in order to conduct an effective campaign on the correct use of biotechnology. For it is not simply a matter of foreseeing and preventing the grave threats looming over human health and ecological balance, but also of preventing speculative mechanisms from taking hold, above all on the part of multinationals. It cannot be permitted that, through 'patents', a few privileged actors come to be granted the right to control biotechnologies, as though discoveries concerning life were subject to private ownership. That would be to legitimise new forms of monopoly and colonialism, more inhumane than those of yesterday. Life is not an industrial invention. Life is not manufactured. Life cannot be patented."

As regards the research by Professor Gilles-Éric Séralini, which highlighted probable negative health effects in mice fed on GMO feed, it should be pointed out that it is not true that he published false data; rather, he himself identified certain inaccuracies, and the journal's editorial board decided to retract the publication. The study presented "some weak points regarding the number of animals involved in each test and the strain of mice used." Precisely in order to address the study's limitations, a French public body, the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (Anses), is preparing a similar piece of research for which European funding has been allocated. Therefore, if it is true that Séralini's study required years of work, meaning that further years will be needed before independent researchers can verify it, this suggests that perhaps it is not such flawed work after all. In my view, what will be needed is to identify, if any exist, the weak points in Séralini's work, redo it properly and then discuss the findings… But let us not rely solely on the research of the powerful lobbies that want to do business with GMOs!

Even if it will take years, time is not the issue. Our society is in no hurry to introduce a technological innovation whose long-term effects we do not yet fully understand. We cannot once again think of "collectivising the costs and privatising the gains," as has happened with so many other "technological innovations" that turned out to be nothing of the sort and that have cost us enormously in terms of environmental remediation.
Does anyone remember the scientists who gave assurances about the benefits of feeding cattle with animal meal? Where had these wells of knowledge gone when the BSE prion spread mad cow disease, causing deaths, the slaughter of millions of animals and damage running into billions and billions of euros?

But the decisive argument for supporting a GMO-free Italy is that GMOs represent a danger to our country's agriculture, since national agricultural policy should aim to protect a sector of strategic importance. Let us think of Italian agriculture as a large private enterprise and ask ourselves: does there exist in the market a private company that wants at all costs to produce a good that 80% of consumers have said they do not want to buy? Would a car manufacturer produce a car that 80% of drivers have said they do not want to buy? Does there exist in the market a company that abandons a winning strategy based on quality — annual agri-food turnover is in the order of 120 billion euros, with exports in the order of 30 billion euros — in order to pursue a mass-market, homogenising strategy based on low production costs and questionable quality levels? Could we, Agriculture Italy, compete with GMOs on the world market?

We are the world's leading country in typical, organic and protected-designation-of-origin produce. Our agriculture and Italian agri-food are the only sector growing despite the crisis.

I would advise farmers to commit to typical, quality production without risking causing, for the sake of some possible small advantage to themselves, gravely serious damage to the image of agricultural made in Italy worldwide.