Bantry the next GM Free Town?

There was rejoicing this morning in Organico when we received the news from GM Free Ireland that BASF have indeffinately postponed their GM potato trials in Co. Meath. What a victory for irish farmers and for Micheal O'Callaghan, the spokesperson for the GM Fee Ireland Network. Apparently, BASF were put off by the restrictions placed on the company by the EPA who demanded that the company pay for the costs of an independant health and environmental impact study.

In Organico we disagree completely with the genetic modification of foods and food seeds, for environmental, health and philosophical reasons. The studies of the environmental and health impacts of eating GM foods and the cross contamination of species are simply not satisfactory. And the situation in Canada where farmer Percy Schmeiser faced a million-dollar law suit from Monsanto because his crops became cross-comtaminated by its GM rapeseed in 1996 is outrageous - and now he is having to launch an expensive lawsuit against the Canadian Government. His charges include:


*Violation of comsumers' rights because they are not being told of the level of GM contamination in their food supply;
*Violation of Farmers' right because of the GM contamination of their crops;
*Suppression of academic freedom, due to the private sector funding of the biotech research;
*Attempts to foist GM terminator seeds on the rest of the world (thee seeds are specially modified to be sterile and therefore farmers cannot save their own seeds for the follwing year).

Percy Schmeiser and Vandana Shiva, the Indain farm leader, are the keynote speakers at a conference in June organised by GM Free Ireland to discuss Ireland's GM policy in Kilkenny on the weekend of June 16-18.

Organico bantry is delighted to support the GM Free Ireland network in stopping the planting of GM crops in Ireland and accross the world. Recently the IAHS, the Irish Association of Healthfood Stores, has come out with an anti-GM position, as has Slow Food Ireland.

Bantry Officially a Fair Trade Town

Liz Ewing, Rachel and Hannah Dare were delighted last night to be at the official launch of Fair Trade Bantry where Mayor Letty Baker was handed Bantry's Certificate by Melanie Dray from the Fair Trade office in Dublin.

The guest of honour was Darina Allen from Ballymaloe House, well known for her tireless support for Fair trade and for Artisan food producers all accross Ireland and beyond. Darina gave an interesting and thought-provoking account of her experience of banana farming in Mexico, where she saw first hand how horrific conditions are for farmers who are shamelessly exploited so that our supermarkets can make slightly bigger margins. Melanie Dray had introduced the topic of bananas, saying that they are the next product on the Fair Trade 'hit list' because of the sheer awfulness of the international banana trade, which uses what she described as the 'dirty dozen' chemicals on bananas which are being shown to cause, among other things, severe fertility problems for the growers and pickers. Fair Trade banana plantation owners, on the other hand, cannot use these chemicals, which in itself reduces the risks immensley.

Darina also brought up the very valid point that Fair Trade begins at home, where our food producers and farmers are generally struggling to make a living because of what she called our idea that we have a 'right' to cheap food. If we value our bodies, she said, we should be prepared to pay for the food we use to fuel them.

The Launch was also attended by Bantry Town Councillor Mary Heggarty (who had a huge role to play in Bantry achieving Fair Trade status), Councillor Aidan McCarthy, and former Mayor Donal Casey as well as Artisan cheese producer Giana Fergusson from Gubbeen Cheese in Schull. Representatives also came from Clonakilty and Kinsale, other Fair Trade Towns in West Cork. Overall - a very interesting evening!