Agriculture ministers and other officials attending a summit in the Slovenian city of Ptuj, including the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture’s Parliamentary State Secretary, István Nagy, have signed a joint declaration on keeping Europe’s agriculture free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

During the meeting, the Ministers responsible for agriculture discussed the challenges relating to reducing and banning the cultivation of GMOs, and the European Union recommendation that would allow each member state to decide independently on banning or restricting the distribution of genetically modified food and feeds within their own territories.

The participants agreed that their common goal was to assure an agriculture that produces excellent quality, safe foods, in the interests of which they are calling for the establishment of joint development opportunities.

The signatories will collaborate in the launching of domestic and international research programmes to assist in the search for alternative feed crops designed to reduce dependence on imported plant proteins, in addition to which they also undertook to cooperate in the development of a GMO-free food labelling system, which is one of the most current tasks for the remainder of this year.

The officials attending the meeting also stressed the importance of providing GMO-related information and research results to the public based on reliable sources, thus enabling consumers to make a conscious and informed choice.

(Ministry of Agriculture)