The ruling made public days ago states that honey containing trace amounts of pollen from
genetically modified (GM) corn must undergo a full safety authorization before it can be sold
as food.

It is a groundbreaking decision for industrialized food and raw materials both of vegetal and
animal origin coming from countries where GMO are authorized.

A press release of the organization Chile sin transgénicos (Chile without GMO) reads “the
information in that country on the localization of GM crops and even the percentage
of MON 810 corn is secret and it is protected by the government. This seriously damages
the nearly 12,000 beekeepers of the country. According to preliminary estimates of the
Association of honey exporters, nearly 40% of honey production will be affected by GM
contamination”.

REDES-Friends of the Earth Uruguay is in the process of expanding a preliminary study that
verified contamination both in GM and in conventional corn varieties, even in places that kept
the necessary distance from GM crops because of their “open” pollination.

Several genetically modified corn varieties were recently authorized in Uruguay, including
MON 810 produced by transnational corporation Monsanto.

Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil also have thousands of hectares of land planted with MON
810. All of them being honey producing and agriculture exporting countries.

“Honey exports are the ones being affected today. Tomorrow it will be the exports of salmon
fed with GM feed or wine produced with contaminated water. In reality there is no production
safe from the negative impact of this activity”, reads the press release.

European Directive 2001/181 provides that the intentional release of GMO in the air or their
sale may only be done with the corresponding authorization.

Baviera’s regional government (Germany) owns several plots of land cultivated with corn
MON 810 for research purposes. Bablok is a non-professional beekeeper who produces honey to be sold and for his own consumption near said plots of land.

In 2005 MON 810 as well as genetically modified proteins were detected in the pollen of the
corn collected by Bablok in hives located 500 meters from the government lands, and in the
honey produced there, reads the ruling published on the European Court of Justice’s website.

When considering the presence of traces of genetically modified corn, its products were
unable to be sold or consumed, so the producer filed a legal action against the Land of
Baviera before local courts.

Then the high contentious-administrative court of Land of Baviera asked the European Court
of Justice to decide if the presence of GM pollen in said products implied a “substantial”
modification of said products, in terms that their sale should be authorized.

In his conclusions, advocate General of the European Court of Justice, Yves Bot, states that
GMO are above all, as any other living organism, biological entities capable of reproducing or transferring genetic material.

He specifies that any food containing materials coming from a genetically modified plant,
included either intentionally or not, should be qualified as produced from GMO.

The ruling reads “The risk that GM food may imply for human health is independent from the
fact that the material coming from a genetically modified plant is introduced voluntarily or
not”.

Lastly, the Advocate General states that the unintentional presence of pollen derived
from MON 810 corn in honey, even in insignificant amounts, causes to require special
authorization to be sold”.