Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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Question 396: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food her views on draft EU proposals to permit products accidentally contaminated with up to 0.9 per cent of genetically-modified organisms to bear an EU organic logo and be sold as organic from 2009. [16390/06]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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Discussion on a new Regulation on organic production and labelling of organic products is still at an early stage at European Council Working Group level. It is clear, however, that the new Regulation will continue to prohibit the deliberate use of genetically-modified organisms (GMO) in organic production and processing, and that products cannot be labelled both organic and GMO. I fully support this position.

While organic farming prohibits the use of GMOs, there is some risk that they may be introduced unintentionally to organic crops from time to time as a result of events over which producers have no control. It will be necessary to refer to this in the new Regulation on organic production. The existing horizontal Regulations regarding the labelling of food and feed state that a product with an adventitious presence of GMO of more than 0.9% must be labelled as GM. The draft Regulation on organic production proposes to adopt the same threshold.