Organic farmers delivered your signature against GE rice
Myrto, our EU sustainable agriculture campaigner - tells us about the farmers who delivered 180,000 signatures to the EU Commission this month.
“Picture this: nature is like a piano, the music that nature plays with all its piano keys is the biodiversity, imagine now that GMOs [genetically manipulated organisms] coming into the picture, that piano has now only one key, the Monsanto key!”
With this beautiful metaphor Eduardo Campayo a spanish organic farmer from Spain began to describe his personal experience with GE (genetically engineered) crops - to EU Commissioner of Health Vassiliou, Belgian Minister Lutgen, MEPs and EU journalists.
Eduardo was not alone meeting all these people in Brussels earlier this month. He was joined by Fernando Jose Llobel, the president of the Organic Consumer Association from the same region in Spain (Albacete), Peter Nielsson an organic potato and dairy farmer from Sweden and Samnieng Huadlim a very dynamic 65 year old woman and organic rice farmer from Thailand.
All of them joined us in Brussels to deliver the Greenpeace petition signed by 180,000 people - against the introduction of Bayer’s GE rice into the EU.
I wish everyone who had signed the rice petition could have been there - to meet these amazing organic farmers and hear them speaking their truth from the heart. You would not have any doubt that all of them have made a conscious choice to produce healthy food, work with nature, help their communities. And their message was so clear -- GE crops are putting all this at risk.
Eduardo is already the victim of genetic contamination and has never been compensated for his economic losses. He strongly asked Mrs Vassiliou to stop GE crops and protect farmers all over the world against contamination.
Mrs Samnieng, who delivered the GE rice petition, also called for the same action. If GE rice is authorised in the EU - then the seeds will eventually arrive in Thailand for growing - and that would be catastrophic. Right now - Mrs Samnieng produces her rice organically. She is self sufficient and also supports her community by providing jobs and educating people how to farm ecologically and be self sufficient in her community.
You may find thousands of pages on the internet with arguments for and against GE crops - but if you meet the people who grow food for us in an ecological way you would easily understand how we can protect the planet and feed the world with only ecological food - because we can combine the traditional knowledge, with modern methods while avoiding introducing dangerous GE crops into the environment.
Thanks to all of you who signed the petition. While we have delivered all the signatures so far to the EU - we are still collecting signatures on the global petition. So if you haven't added your voice yet - it's not too late (click here).
Follow Greenpeace »
Comments
Gentle People:
Monsanto creates a monopoly for their Roundup pesticide. The genetically modified food seeds Montsanto creates, are modified to resist death by Roundup pesticide, but all the other plants surrounding the genitically modified Montsanto plants, are not immune to Roundup.
Montsanto is basically selling poison to farmers and forcing the farmers to sign an aggreement whereas they only use Montsanto seeds with Montsanto Roundup pesticide. Do you honestly want to buy Montsanto products knowing this is how they operate?
Posted by: Joseph Raglione | October 28, 2009 5:45 AM
Not to detract from countering that corporate scourge, GM, but Ecologic/Organic foods and agriculture have a few other things going for them:
Rodale Institute reports that if all the worlds croplands were worked using organic/ecologic practices with composting they could sequester 39% of the worlds annual carbon dioxide load.
http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=14110646#
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/global_warming
Gee, better food, as much if not more food, and a healthier environment ? Is this a win-win scenario ?
If one really gets ones hands in the dirt like I do you might know that the Rodale report is ballpark true. Sequestering 39% of our CO2 load by treating our soils with a little more respect.
Chemical controls are not the answer to my questions. Me, I tweak and bend natures in my farming/gardening practices, I don't try to control it. And I eat well. Lucky me.
Posted by: listenin | October 28, 2009 11:33 AM
debemos luchar todos unidos contra los transgenicos y no permitir que nos gobiernen las multinacionales de las simientes que nos llevaran a todos a la pobreza y a la destruccion de la tierra aunque sea solo para y por nuestros hijos y nietos
Posted by: m.carmen espejo larumbe | November 4, 2009 12:55 PM
It's a shame
Posted by: David Colomer | November 4, 2009 3:30 PM
No comments.
Posted by: Joan Bover | November 11, 2009 6:31 PM
WE ARE WITH GREEPEACE AND NOT TO TRANSGENIC RICE !!!
Posted by: merce garcia | November 13, 2009 8:18 PM
slow science, please!
Posted by: guido ramellini | November 18, 2009 4:11 PM