There is consensus among Hungary’s parliamentary parties that the country is opposed to the cultivation of genetically modified crops or GMOs, Sándor Font, an MP of governing Fidesz who chairs Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, said at a press conference in Budapest on Tuesday.
Although Hungary’s farm sector lacks the capital strength of its competitors in the West as well as a multinational chain of supermarkets, it holds true to the value of a “pure agricultural environment”, Font said.
Food produced in a pure environment, that is, one free of genetically modified crops, could become Hungarian “image products” within 5-15 years, which could be the farm sector’s breakthrough, he added.
Hungary’s five parliamentary parties agreed in November 2006 to approve a resolution confirming the country’s commitment to remaining GMO-free and prohibiting the planting of the genetically-modified MON 810 seed made by Monsanto. The European Union repeatedly tried to get Hungary to lift is moratorium on GMOs, but votes by member states allowed the country to uphold the ban, Font recalled.
In the ongoing debate on an EU GMO package, Hungary is pushing for member states, not Brussels, to take the decision on whether or not to allow the planting of GMOs as a commercial crop, he said.
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