Greenpeace takes action down under
Greenpeace Australia activists painted "Stop GE imports" on a ship's hull as it entered Brisbane early this morning. The ship, Rhein, was carrying 13,000 tons of genetically engineered (GE) soy meal destined for animal feed.
Our GE campaigner Jeremy Tager said that up to 300,000 tons of GE soya sneaks into the Australian food chain each year. "Greenpeace is acting on its conviction that consumers have the right to know what's in their food, so we are labelling this GE soya shipment."
The branding of the shipment coincides with the start of a national poultry industry conference on the Gold Coast today, which opens with a discussion on GE feed. Greenpeace is also there to spread the GE-free message.
"The poultry industry is the backbone of the trade in GE soy in Australia, they are getting away with it because nobody knows about it," said Tager.
"Our action today sends a clear message to the poultry industry that they can't get away with sneaking GE into the Australian food chain."
The Rhein, is scheduled to unload the rest of its GE soya cargo in Melbourne around April 26. The Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior, arrives in Melbourne that week, continuing a 'GE-free future' tour of Australia and New Zealand.
Further information
- Consumer polls repeatedly show that Australians don't want GE anywhere in the food chain: The latest survey by the Australian Consumers' Association found that 84% of consumers had concerns about eating genetically engineered food and 94% want comprehensive labelling of GE foods [Oct 2003]
- Biotechnology Australia in its latest consumer survey, found that 66% of people believed that feeding animals with GE constituted a genetic modification of food. [Nov 2003]
- A national survey conducted for Greenpeace in 2002 found that 61% of Australians don't want to buy foods from animals fed genetically engineered crops] and more than 90% of consumers want such products clearly labelled. [Taylor-Nelson-Sofres April 2002]
