No way out for Bunge soya

Soya processors Cereol/Bunge are being visited for the second time this week by our campaginers, this time 30 international activists have occupied the international company's soya processing facility in Ancona, Italy.

We have locked the entrance and exit gates to the plant to prevent any of the GE soya leaving, some activists have chained themselves to the weigh bridge while others have busied themselves by hanging banner 20 metres long at a silo demanding 'Stop GMO food'. A Greenpeace team is also sampling the soya from the Cereol warehouse for the record.

"After being refused by consumers, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are now being abandoned by the same companies who developed them. Bayer withdrew its GE maize in the UK some weeks ago, Monsanto has abandoned its GE wheat plans and GE canola earlier this week. So why are Cereol/Bunge still importing GMOs? GMO free soya is widely available from Brazil, in fact over 50,000 tons of GE free Brazilian soya is being delivered right here right now for Bunge," commented Federica Ferrario, our Italian GE campaigner.

Cereol is the Italian subsidiary of Bunge, it has another two premises in Italy: Ravenna and Porto Marghera, and is also importing soya meal from Argentina. In Ancona alone 1500 tons of soya is processed daily.

The management of the plant in Ravenna told us recently that they are currently GE free, because they are importing GE free soya from Brazil, however they could resume importing contaminated soya in October. The company has so far made no commitment to maintain the Ravenna facility as GE Free and it continues to import millions of tons of GE soya for its Ancona and Porta Maghera facilities.

"Bunge/Cereol has the ability to make this and its other soya import and processing facilities GE Free, but it appears they do not have the will to do so. Companies who control our food supply have a responsibility to provide GE free products and / or the public authorities have a responsibility to control the companies who control our food supply. One way or another, we have a right to GE free food and today we are taking action to protect that right," added Lindsay Keenan our International GE campaigner in Italy.

Today's protest follows the action in the Adriatic Sea, near Venice, where the Greenpeace ship Esperanza stopped the offloading of a ship carrying some 40,000 tons of GE soya from Argentina for four days. On Monday our activists also closed Italy's main soya import facilities in Ravenna.

Find Out More:

- Read out article about Bunge and other GE soya importers being targeted in Italy

- Read our story GE soya intercepted in Italy

- Read our stoyr: Marathon Blockade Ends in Italy - Check out our animation GE Soya Cycle Exposed

- Read our in-depth document about Soya

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