GM-free Scotland

News | October '07 | Participatory democracy

In January 2005, Greenpeace published a landmark report, “No market for GM labelled food in Europe”. This described a virtual shut-down of the EU market for identifiable GM food. Europe's top 30 retailers and top 30 food producers had, by then, already declared non-GM commitments which revealed a massive international food and beverage industry rejection of GM produce. The combined total food and drink sales of the companies with a stated non-GM policy amounted to more than 60% of the total.

In February 2005, a petition signed by one million EU citizens called on the Commission to extend mandatory labelling to include meat and dairy produce from GM-fed animals, citing citizens' right to information as a fundamental right in the European Union. Most leading EU retailers are gradually extending their GM bans to include such produce.

These actions are firmly supported by public opinion. A EuroBarometer survey which found that “Overall, Europeans think that GM food should not be encouraged. GM food is widely seen as not being useful, as morally unacceptable and as a risk for society”.

Recently, there has been widespread evidence of increasing moves to push GM out of Europe.

The first field trial of a biotech crop in the UK since the Farm Scale Evaluations went ahead earlier this year with BASF's blight-resistant GM potatoes. It was brought to halt by local opposition at one site in Yorkshire, and by the removal of the crop one dark night at the other site in Cambridgeshire. This attempt to re-introduce GM into the British way of life is widely seen as a trial of public opinion, rather than a test of a new potato variety. Time will tell if BASF has an answer to whatever question it was asking, or if it will try again next year.

Ireland's government is considering a policy “to declare the whole island of Ireland a GMO-free zone”, with the aim of prohibiting the release of live GM seeds, crops, livestock, trees, insects, crustaceans and fish on the island.

After being one of the few European countries to have introduced commercial growing of GM maize, albeit on a small scale, France has witnessed anti-GM activism on a large scale. This has included a hunger strike and protest fast, and regular destruction of experimental fields. Now, the government view seems to have changed. Its Minister for Ecology, Development and Sustainable Management said “Everyone is in agreement on the GM issue: it is not possible to control their spread. So we will not take the risk”. France is now seriously planning to reduce the spread of GMOs, plus a freeze on the commercialisation of GM seeds. The freeze will be implemented through the refusal of new authorisations from the point at which the law is voted in. This process will be facilitated by the fact that authorisation for the GM maize grown in France, MON 810, expires this year. France has also introduced a publicly accessible national register, drawn up from compulsory declarations for cultivation of GM crops.

In an extraordinary experiment in participatory democracy, Italian food producers, consumers and conservation groups are trying to get three million signatures in a petition to ban GM food in their country. Their attitude to the threat of hefty fines imposed by the World Trade Organisation is clear: “We will not be afraid, we will say: 'Tell us how much it will cost and we will pay it'. And this will be the biggest advertisement in the world to promote quality agriculture.”

The Greek government has this year banned 16 types of hybrid GM maize from being imported into the country, bringing the total number of GM crops banned there to 47. It has also blocked the import of 88 tons of Chinese rice grown from GM seeds.

At the end of 2006, Hungary and Austria have both had their bans on the commercial planting of MON810 maize backed by EU ministers. At about the same time, the EU Committee of the Regions, reporting on GM and non-GM co-existence, demanded the right to prohibit GMO cultivation at the regional level.

Hot off the press, the EU Environment Commissioner is, for the first time, proposing to ban two types of GM maize because of the risks they pose to the environment. The varieties being banned are Syngenta's Bt 11 and another Bt type (1507) produced by Pioneer/Dow. (OUR COMMENT The rejection of Bt11 maize is interesting: its acceptance for cultivation in America was put forward as 'proof' of the safety of illegal Bt10 maize which contains similar DNA constructs and which caused widespread contamination of our food chain in 2005!)

Plenty of warnings are continuing to filter through that growing GM crops is a bad idea.

In Spain, the only native Catalan corn variety has been contaminated by the GM variety grown in that region. This valuable strain has consequently been lost.

Romania is widely contaminated by illegal GM soya and other crops such as maize, potatoes and plums, apparently due to a well-established black market coupled to chaotic legislation. A Greenpeace analysis of soya food products bought from Romanian supermarkets showed GM contamination in the range of 16.2 to 97.3 per cent. There is of course no labelling and in one poll this year, 67 per cent of Romanians rejected GM foods.

The disastrous effects on global trade in rice caused by the discovery of illegal GM varieties in American long-grain rice, and the unsatisfactory conclusion to the incident (see THE END OF THE ILLEGAL GM RICE STORY – News, October 2007) is the biggest warning yet on the risks of growing GM crops, even for experimental purposes.

Even the biotech industry has, this year, withdrawn five of its GM food crops from use in Europe. For many this is seen as clear proof that the novel crops are failing to fulfill their promise.

But despite all this, the EU is under a lot of pressure to promote GM crops.

There is on-going rumbling from the US, including renewed threats from the American Soybean Producers to bring a second case before the World Trade Organisation.

The huge promotion of GM soya in three large countries, America, Argentina and Brazil, seems to have been contrived in the hope that the market can ultimately force Europe to change its system.

Add to this that Europe is not sending clear messages abroad on its stance: EU farm ministers consistently fail to agree on the approval of new GM crop applications, and just as consistently fail to get a sufficient majority to reject the crops outright, meaning that under EU rules, the crops are given a 10-year default approval. This unsatisfactory process is being largely supported by smaller countries opting to abstain rather than give a clear vote. Needless to say, Britain is almost always in favour of approving new GMOs.

The biotech industry seems able to exert its own pressure on EU regulations. For example, it is successfully keeping much information about GM products secret in its applications to market them. Countries which have a tradition of transparency, such as Sweden, are likely to find themselves subject to legal action by the European Commission for allowing access to biotech industry documents.

OUR COMMENT

At the end of 2006, the EU Committee of the Regions delivered a report on the co-existence of GM and non-GM crops: it clearly demands the right to prohibit GMO cultivation at the regional level. The latest EuroBarometer survey indicates that the will to ban GM is actually increasing, and the rejection of GM food has never been so high (and this survey was conducted before the scandal of illegal GM long-grain rice broke). The number of GMO free Regions around Europe is still expanding, the latest being the County of Cork in Ireland.

What this all adds up to is that Europe needs YOU to help it to stop dithering, and to stand up to outside pressures.

Since Britain seems to be right at the cutting edge of the undemocratic, pro-GM, water-muddying going on in the EU, it would be helpful to get our own house in order. As a first step, why not join in Friends of the Earth's postcard campaign to 'Protect our food from GM contamination”. The message on these postcards urges the British Government to ensure that 'coexistence' regulations do not erode our right to choose GM-free food, nor risk our health and our environment. You can get this postcards from Richard Hines richard.hines@foe.co.uk, or by telephoning Friends of the Earth office in Leeds: 0113 242 8153.

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