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.
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.
posted by Organico at 5:05 AM
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