Stop the Genetic Experiment: A global campaign for a global issue
Over the next few months consumers, farmers and governments have a unique opportunity to stop the spread of GE food and GE crops worldwide.
Almost every day new food producers and retailers are committing to use non-GE ingredients. They do that in letters to Greenpeace and through public announcements. They go "green" as we call it. Those that (continue to) use GE crops in their food production get red-listed by us and will be named and shamed throughout this campaign. Who knows they may become 'green' by the end.
Our Greenpeace GE consumer guides or red/green lists are being released in more than 20 countries in the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. In Europe we are also launching operation Trolley Watch, where active consumers are joining up to rid supermarket shelves of GE foods.
The GE Threat
In the decade since commercial GE crop plantings began, we have witnessed the development and spread of superweeds sometimes resistant to three different types of herbicides. New US studies show that GE crops typically mean more, not less, pesticides. We have also learned that organic farming simply cannot exist side by side with GE crops, and that GE contamination of the food chain is unavoidable. Some of the GE agricultural policies verge on pure lunacy - in Argentina they are chopping down ancient rainforest to grow GE soya to feed European pigs!
The GE companies are not in this business to feed the world, as their publicity material so crassly suggests. They are in this business to make huge profits by owning and controlling major staple food crops, which they have genetically engineered to be used along with the chemical herbicides that they also sell.
The only natural thing about GE is the way that GE crops spread, they do crossbreed, they do cross-pollinate, they are carried in the wind and by the insects. The seeds do spill and the harvested crops are mixed with normal crops. And every time and everywhere the contamination spreads, the GE companies rejoice...because they own the patent... and as nature spreads their patented GE genes so their lawyers claim ownership of everything they contaminate.... while refusing to accept any liability for the damage they cause.
In the space of one generation GE companies have taken this new area of scientific research, crudely manipulated it and are right now trying to patent and then to sell GE everything; GE seeds for all major food crops, GE Fruit, GE Fish, GE Trees, GE Animals, GE Insects even GE Grass. GE soya is only the thin end of the wedge. If we accept GE soya in our food then we open the door to GE everything.
Saving Soya
In Brazil we are at the forefront of the battle against transgenic soya, and in China we are working to protect the homeland of soya from GE contamination. Everywhere we can during the campaign we will be confronting GE soya, be it along the export routes or along the food chain.
The urgency to act now becomes clear when considering that half of the world's soya is already transgenic. Let's stop this before it's to late. Amazingly, one single company - Monsanto - is responsible for more than 91% of all GE crops in the world. We and the environment are at risk while Monsanto makes all the profit - why on Earth should we accept this?
Reasons to Rejoice
Fortunately there are just as many good reasons to be optimistic. The vast majority of all GE crops are still grown in just three countries - USA, Argentina, Canada. Canadian farmers are successfully resisting the introduction of Monsanto's GE wheat, and no GE crops will be grown in the foreseeable future in the UK (contrary to the media spin of just a few months ago).
An increasing number of states and regions are declaring themselves GE-free zones - Parana in Brazil, numerous European regions and most recently even a Californian county. Most Australian states have now put in place GE crop moratoria. In Africa, countries insist on their right to say no to GMOs, seeing through US attempts to dump subsidized GE grains that no one else wants. In Thailand GE papaya was stopped in its tracks last summer. Consumer opposition and market rejection is massive in Japan and Europe, and on the rise in Russia, China and Brazil. In some places such as Sweden, Switzerland, Austria - even feeding GMOs to animals is not tolerated. All of this proves that we can stop GE food and animal feed.
Biosafety and biodiversity must be safeguarded - biohazards and biopiracy must be prevented, so let's Round-up GMO food once and for all.
Dan Hindsgaul, Greenpeace GE Campaign
