Warnings Against GMO
Genetic Modification of your food and decreasing genetic diversity are cause for concern
Jun 29, 2006
There are a number of groups worldwide working to shed light on potential and existing dangers of green biotechnology, genetic engineering, GMOs, and genetically modified foods. Among them are Greenpeace, Biowatch South Africa, and True Food Network.
A non-profit organization active in 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Greenpeace has an ongoing project to "Say no to genetic engineering."
From Greenpeace's website:
"While scientific progress on molecular biology has a great potential to increase our understanding of nature and provide new medical tools, it should not be used as justification to turn the environment into a giant genetic experiment by commercial interests. The biodiversity and environmental integrity of the world's food supply is too important to our survival to be put at risk. Genetic engineering enables scientists to create plants, animals and micro-organisms by manipulating genes in a way that does not occur naturally.
These genetically modified organisms (GMO) can spread through nature and interbreed with natural organisms, thereby contaminating non 'GE' environments and future generations in an unforeseeable and uncontrollable way.
Their release is 'genetic pollution' and is a major threat because GMOs cannot be recalled once released into the environment." We advocate immediate interim measures such as labelling of GE ingredients, and the segregation of genetically engineered crops and seeds from conventional ones.
We also oppose all patents on plants, animals and humans, as well as patents on their genes. Life is not an industrial commodity. When we force life forms and our world's food supply to conform to human economic models rather than their natural ones, we do so at our own peril."
The True Food Network works to get laws passed requiring labeling and safety testing of genetically modified (GM) food in the United States.
Representatives from more than 100 signatory countries met on 17 June, 2006, in Madrid, Spain, for the first meeting of the governing body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (IT PGRFA), which came into force in 2004. The body agreed on a legally-binding standard material transfer agreement (MTA) and that there was an urgent need to implement farmer's rights.
"Far from staving off world starvation, genetic engineering is set to threaten crop yields; to force farmers to pay for their rights to fertile seed; to undercut foreign demand for some Third World produce: and to undermine poorer farmers' access to land on which to grow food. Its cruelly deceptive promise of a technical fix for many people's lack of food not only conceals the unjust distribution of land and of economic and political power which underpin world hunger today: if adopted widely, genetic engineering technologies in agriculture would also entrench and extend these forces." (Corner House, 1998)
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Copyright 2006 by Sally Morton
