Most EU nations to block cultivation of 8 GMO crops

Brussels

MORE than half of the European Union's 28 nations plan to prohibit the cultivation of a group of genetically modified crops awaiting EU regulatory approval, marking the first use by individual governments of a new right to go their own way on the planting of biotech foods.

Nineteen EU countries have demanded that all or part of their territory be shielded from eight pending applications to grow gene-altered crops in the bloc, according to the European Commission. One application is a request for renewed authorization to cultivate Monsanto Co's MON810 corn variety, which was approved in 1998 and is the only biotech food grown commercially in the EU.