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Abbas Papizadeh, member of Iranian Parliament Committee on Agriculture, in an interview with Tasnim News talked about a clause in government’s Sixth Development Plan on commercializing GM crops and stated: “GM crops are a risk for people’s health and we had a long discussion about whether we must allow production of these crops or not while we were studying Sixth Development Plan in Agriculture Committee.”

He explained the idea of banning production and consumption of GM crops in sixth Development Plan was brought up by him and added: “there were other suggestions such as producing GM crops limitedly or under supervision of strict standards, but finally the bill was written to ban import, production and consumption of GM crops in Iran.”

Papizadeh said that planting GM crops and organic products were investigated in Sixth Development Plan and affirmed: “in this plan, import and production of GM crops will be banned while planting organic products will increase.”

This member of Parliament Committee on Agriculture stated: “in the Plan approved by Agriculture Committee, it’s mentioned that government mustn’t allow any sort of GM crops to enter consumer market in Iran.”

When he was asked whether oil cake and Bt cotton were banned in Sixth Plan, he clarified: “oil cake is not consumed directly by humans, but since it’s food for poultry and humans consume their meat, there is possibility of its negative effect on humans. Import and consumption of Bt cotton is also forbidden.”

Abbas Papizadeh acknowledged: “although negative effects of GM crops have not been fully proved yet, but as long as they’re not announced harmless by science, we have no way but to prevent their production and import.”

He continued: “developing and planting organic products, imposing national standards for quality control of agriculture products, expanding control over usage of pesticides and decreasing it, supporting Plant Medicine clinics and sustainable consumption of fertilizers and pesticides are some other issues considered in Sixth Plan.”

Papizadeh said: “we hope that this 5 year-plan will help to decrease treatment costs and increase public health.”

The bill written by Parliament Committee on Agriculture is passed to Parliament Joint Committee and after they approve it and it’s put in Parliament’s final report, Parliament members will be vote on it in plenary session and it will become a law.