Reaction to GM crops (From Gazette & Herald)

Reaction to GM crops

Within hours of the story 'GM crops benefit poor countries' being posted on This is Ryedale, we received an e-mailed document from Robert Vint, director of Genetic Food Alert UK. He expresses "disgust at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's manipulation of the truth about hunger in order to market GM crops." It was a lengthy response but we present here a summary of some of his points.

A UNITED Nations report supportive of genetically-modified crops for poorer nations has been condemned by a range of international groups and organisations.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report was published on May 17. In the few weeks since then, more than 650 bodies in more than 80 countries, including farming and environmental groups, peasant and other non-governmental organisations prepared a response delivered late last week to the FAO in Rome.

Their 'open letter' describes the 200-plus page FAO document as highly-biased and that it ignores available evidence of the adverse impact of

genetically-engineered crops.

The letter said that although the FAO report does mention that genetic engineering is dominated by corporations, it overlooks the fact that only one company Monsanto controls over 90pc of the total world area sown to transgenic seeds.

The letter states: "It is unacceptable that the FAO endorses the need for intellectual property for corporations. This amounts to FAO support for corporate biopiracy since the genetic resources that corporations seek to patent result from the collective breeding work of farmers over thousands of years", the letter notes.

Genetic contamination is polluting the very heart of the world's centres of crop diversity, says the letter. But the FAO brushes aside this tragedy with hardly a comment. Yet, for the very cultures that created agriculture, this is an aggression against their life, against the crops they created and nurture, and against their food sovereignty.

Contrary to what the FAO proposes, genetically-engineered crops do not help fight hunger in the world. The letter states: "History demonstrates that structural changes in access to land, food, and political power combined with robust, ecological technologies via farmer-led research reduce hunger and poverty. The 'gene revolution' promises to take us in the opposite direction."

Mr Vint says that the protest first arose among African farming organisations and then spread rapidly around the world via the internet.

The full document described above can be found at www.grain.org/go/fao-en

The FAO report can be found at www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/41714/index.html

Updated: 09:26 Thursday, June 17, 2004