The European Union is in the final throws of approving commercial planting of GM crops, the result of pressure from the US, Canada and Argentina. Enough is enough! Europe does not need GM products.
GM crops do not offer any benefit to the consumer or farmer. There is no evidence that any claims of disease resistance, insect resistance or increased yields made by the manufacturers are true in the long term. The only benefit is for the seed companies, so they can own the rights to the food we eat, and spread that ownership by contaminating the environment and our food with their genetic material.
No to GM in Our Food
0.9% GM material is currently allowed, even in certified organic foods. Just who thought of this limit anyway! This limit should be 0%. There is currently no formal or mandatory testing. Testing should be mandatory, and when food is found above legal limits it should be promptly removed from the market.
No GM for Livestock
Most meat and dairy products in Europe are produced with GM animal feed. There is no reason for this, and it should be stopped at once.
Certified organic animals are not allowed to be fed GM feed, but there is no formal testing for this. Random informal testing suggests 20% of supposed GM-free animal feed in fact contains more than the allowed 0.9% level of GM materials. Mandatory testing and enforcement of these limits should be put in place.
No More Trials
For years now permission has been given for trial plantings of GM crops in Europe.
These trials should stop. We don’t need any GM crops grown here.
No to Products Made from GM Organisms
Many common products such as rennet used in hard cheeses, vitamins and food supplements, aspartame sweetener and pharmaceuticals are made with the assistance of genetically modified bacteria, yeasts or other microorganisms. There are many suspected or known health problems associated with these products, many very serious and life threatening.
Some of these are certifiable organic ingredients and can be in organic foods!
Those products which can be replaced with alternatives and products which have no true clinical value should be removed from the market, and those remaining should be clearly labelled for what they are.
May I apologize for our country? Ugh. Some of us here in the U.S. are trying to make a positive impact, but it is difficult to go up against these large corporations and succeed. All we can do is continue to try, make sure we don’t give the GM companies any of our business, and keep spreading the word.
I met an organic farmer whom I respected very much. He revealed to me that the rules for organic farming here are that you TRY to find organic, non-GMO seeds. But there is no regulation for making sure that you have tried. (And what the heck does that mean, anyway? How hard do you have to try?!) This farmer I spoke with told me that he bought seeds that were non-organic and may indeed be GM seeds, but that he didn’t look too hard – “ignorance is bliss.” And then he went on to say that it was the organic GROWING that was important, no the seed. I beg to differ. And I let him know how I felt. It was disheartening, and needless to say I stopped enjoying that farmer’s produce and wine.
Thank you for your post. You’ve made a great point about GM bacteria, yeast, and other microorganisms. Hadn’t thought about that before!
Hi Melinda,
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!
It’s not just your country, it’s my country too. I was born in the US, and still a registered voter in California from when I went to CSU Chico. My absentee ballot for the primaries just went in the mail yesterday. We all have to work on change one step at a time.
This is all one more reason why we need to not only buy locally, but do it from someone we trust. Too bad about the farmer you liked. When it comes down to it, the most important thing to me is that whoever grows or makes my food should care about it, and obviously that farmer just doesn’t care. There will always be someone else, you just have to keep looking…
I couldn’t agree more, Patrick. I feel kinda helpless though … you’re right that we have to make whatever small choices we can as individuals, to source things locally and from people who care. But once these modified plants are unleashed it’s increasingly difficult for anyone, even home gardeners, to protect themselves from contamination. You and I both know how far pollen can travel and how efficiently plants can cross-pollinate despite all our efforts! This worries me especially in relation to wind-pollinated crops like maize and beet, which produce massive amounts of pollen, light enough to travel for miles. The so-called isolation distances are a joke … I don’t know what moron dreamed those up or on what inadequate data they based it. None of us has the facility to test our own food or garden plants to check whether they’re free of GM contamination or not. It’s a lottery.
Big business always has things its own way. The US may have gone further down this path than many other countries, but I don’t expect the corrupt UK government to stand up against it. It’s like nothing else matters as long as the economy just keeps on growing!
Rebsie,
As seed savers we know when plants cross-pollinate, the resulting plant has 50% of it’s DNA from each parent. In our garden we would notice most crosses, and certainly discard any crosses we suspect involved GM plants. Here in Europe, GM crops are still pretty rare. With your example of beet, as far as I aware no GM varieties of beets exist, so there would be no possibility of contamination in this case.
It’s true GM contamination is widespread, and it’s true with a plant like maize (corn) that there is little chance of being able to grow it without at least a little contamination, but not all is lost!
The reason that’s being discussed as why commercial GM crops may still not be allowed in Europe is the possible consumer backlash. Even the US seems to be starting to realize it may not be such a good idea, and has said they won’t pursue sanctions right now.
The reason I made this post is there are currently several thousand different people every month reading this blog. I’ve even traced some Internet addresses as belonging to people inside the Dutch, Belgian (possibly EU) and UK parliaments and other government agencies. In addition, there are a number of journalists and scientists who are also regular readers.
I think everyone reading this blog should know just what the issues are that could emerge if there was a consumer backlash, and should get ready for them.
I know I’ll be ready!
It also looks like the economy might not keep growing…
Hi Patrick
I have an open mind on GM and I’m afraid you haven’t given me anything objective or substantive enough to sway me. For example, can you show evidence that any GM pharmaceuticals cause health problems by their GM nature. Is there a down-side to GM-production of insulin? Wouldn’t a commercial crop with genetically-engineered insecticidal properties actually be a good thing by avoiding spraying?
Simon
Hi Simon,
What you’re asking is the subject matter of an entire blog in itself. While I can take a really quick stab and scratch the surface, you really need to look elsewhere for more information. You might have a look at Seeds of Deception:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com
While there is a lot of free information, there is a lot more if you purchase the books and DVD. While this guy is not a scientist, he is good at explaining things in a way everyone can understand them. His story about L-tryptophan, a food supplement that used to be sold in the US, is a good example of what can go wrong and why when GM pharmaceuticals and food supplements are made, and why they are inherently dangerous. Aspartame is another good example, and there is stuff all over the Internet about that.
GRAIN (see the link on the front of this blog) also has a lot of information about GMOs.
To give a very short answer to the question of why a GM pharmaceutical like insulin could have a down-side is that the technology is really very inprecise, the resulting product can contain large amounts of contaminates that know one really knows what they are or what they can do, there is almost never meaningful testing of these products and the large companies that manufacture them have enough influence that they can force all competing products off the market so no one has a choice but take them.
One of the current problems with GM crops and products is they simply don’t do what the manufacturers say they do. The GM crops that produce their own insecticides don’t prevent spraying, they contain so much insecticide the environment becomes saturated with it, and the insects develop resistance to it within a short period of time. Then larger amounts of more expensive and stronger pesticides become necessary. The farmers have to pay for these chemicals out of their own pockets, driving many of them into bankruptcy and sometimes suicide.
I think there would be a lot less resistance to the idea of GMOs if there were products that were a benefit to the farmer or consumer or that even did what the manufacturers claimed they did. The fact of the matter is they don’t do what the manufacturers say they do, and there is no benefit to the farmer or consumer. Even if we had a choice in the matter and could go to the supermarket and choose between meat that was raised with GM feed or meat that wasn’t, but as consumers we don’t have that choice.
Then there is the issue of intellectual property rights that says among other things everything has to be new in order for food and other corporations to make a profit, meaning there is no longer profit in anything old so they must be removed from the market. This is one of the main reasons we have GMOs, regardless if they serve a useful purpose. This is how we lost the possibility to buy heirloom fruits and vegetables, and why we are about to lose the possibility of buying standard light bulbs in a few years.
There is really so much more to say, and the politics surrounding this are very complex, but this isn’t the place to discuss it. I don’t think most readers of this blog would be interested in a discussion like this, and I don’t have a deep enough knowledge of the subject to say much more than what I’ve said here.
If you like, you could make a post on your own blog on this topic, and you would be welcome to leave a link to the post here in a comment to tell people about it, so if they wanted to make further comments they could do it on your blog.
My understanding is that France is due to ban ALL gm crops including the Monsanto owned MON810 corn, which was suspended pending scientific concerns. The GM corn grown in France increased to 22,000 hectares of the crop in 2007, up from 5,000 hectares in 2006. However the scientists are reporting that the corn disperses way over the supposed safety area and that there is now evidence that the GM corn is killing worms in the soil.
This was in a French newspaper at christmas time but i cannot find anything in English about it online other than the fact the president is prepared to enforce a ban pending a scientifc report. Given that the report evidently does not come out in favour I just hope he sticks to his word.
Thanks Laura! 22,000 hectares is more than I would have thought. There’s probably quite a bit more grown in Holland than I realised.
They used to be quite open about how much they were growing where but then the crops started getting vandalized, so now it’s a secret.
Just a couple of additional thoughts. Although there’s no commercial GM beet currently on the agenda (as far as I know) there has been some development of it in the past and GM sugar beet has been grown in field trials in the UK. Personally I don’t feel happy with open field trials because even these small scale plantings can release GM material into the environment. Field trials were the original source of the large-scale LL601 rice contamination incident in 2006 (although the company responsible blamed it on God).
But it’s true that consumer resistance is the best line of defence. The big supermarkets, for all their faults, will keep GM foods out of their stores if customers are refusing to buy them. They may be motivated by economic factors rather than social responsibility but the end result is the same.
I do feel more optimistic about the prospects of keeping Europe GM-free now than I did back in 1997 when it all seemed so grimly inevitable.