WESSEX
CALLING ALL
THOSE ACROSS THE GLOBE WHO WISH TO SEE AN END TO GM
FOODS!!!!
We are grateful to Lyn Searby (Gloucestershire natural foods retailer) and Henry Brighouse (Natural Law Party, Stroud and Cotswold) for providing details of this important anti-GM food action. Lyn and Henry are the co-founders of the "Stroud Campaign for Safe Food", who, as one of the first groups of its kind in the UK, have been campaigning since 1996 against genetically modified food.
This work has now culminated in the groundbreaking anti-GM food march and presentation of a people's ultimatum to local food retailers which will take place in Stroud tomorrow morning (6 March 1999) .
This initiative is remarkable for the way it has brought together hundreds of concerned individuals and local groups in such a dynamic and effective fashion.
It demonstrates what can be achieved at the local level as national governments across the globe fail to meet their obligations to protect the health of their citizens and environment against the introduction of this irresponsible so-called 'science' and its associated 'technologies'.
It is anticipated that Saturday's groundbreaking march will receive national media attention in the UK.
THIS ACTION CAN EASILY BE REPLICATED IN EVERY LOCALITY ACROSS THE GLOBE.
PLEASE JOIN TOGETHER WITH YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO REPEAT IT IN YOUR OWN AREA WHICHEVER COUNTRY YOU HAPPEN TO BE IN WHEN YOU RECEIVE THIS MESSAGE (WHICH IS BEING FORWARDED TO CONCERNED GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS ON ALL CONTINENTS).
PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE ON AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE.
At the end of the press release below is a full copy of the Stroud group's campaign statement which is suitable (with appropriate adjustments) for use in similar local GM actions throughout world.
We are also pleased to include a copy of Henry Brighouse's own personal statement. Copies of all participating bodies statements will be available shortly from the Stroud group who can be contacted via Trevor Searby at watertalks@cwcom.net .
For more information on the dangers of genetically modified foods and crops please visit our web site at the address below.
NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@bigfoot.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
PRESS RELEASE
CAMPAIGNERS AGAINST GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS DELIVER ULTIMATUM TO SUPERMARKETS IN STROUD. GLOS. SATURDAY 6TH MARCH 1999.
Hundreds of people are expected to turn out today for the 'Stroud Campaign for Safe Food' march to five supermarkets in the town to deliver a document supported by numerous individuals and organisations in the area.
The document is calling for a boycott of all processed foods on supermarket shelves with a recommendation that consumers return to home-cooking using natural ingredients until supermarkets can guarantee their products to be from non-GM sources.
The march is expected to attract mainstream media coverage and the organisers hope that the initiative will be taken up throughout the country.
Co-founder of the group Lyn Searby of Mother Nature Foodshop said, "The Stroud Campaign for Safe Food has been running for two and a half years. The shift in consciousness to more natural lifestyles, is in sharp contrast to the Government’s ‘out of touch’ policy of promoting biotechnology and GMOs. A huge groundswell of public opinion is starting to take shape, exercising consumer power to challenge the might of the multinationals".
The march will conclude with a public reading of the statement, by Henry Brighouse (Natural Law Party); a reply from David Drew (Labour MP for Stroud); a presentation from the Marchioness of Worcester to the local manager of the Iceland chain for their stand on GMOs, and closing comments by the Mayor of Stroud, John Marjoram (Green Party)
So far, statements of support for the document had been received from:
Gloucestershire Bio-diversity Partnership in association with the Wildlife Trust, Greenpeace, Natural Law Party, Green Party, Stroud Beekeepers Association, The Acorn School, Stroud Sixth Formers (302 signatures). Painswick Inn Project, Mother Nature Foodshop, Stroud Natural Health Clinic, Gloucestershire Organic Gardening Group, The Green Shop, Kolisko Farm and Farm Shop, Woodruffs Organic Café, Good Gardeners Association
Itinerary:
10.30 am: Top of Stroud High St, march begins visiting
Tesco, Coop, Sainsbury, Somerfield.
12.30 pm: Statements to be made on the forecourt of the
Stroud Subscription Rooms.
12.55 pm: visit Waitrose.
THE STROUD DOCUMENT ON GMOS - MARCH 1999
Supermarkets stand nearest to the consumer in the food chain. They have the power to choose what to put on their shelves. Given the wide range of possible dangers posed by GMOs (genetically modified organisms) to health and the environment, supermarkets (excepting the Iceland chain) are failing in their moral duty to their customers.
They force the consumers to exercise their powers of discrimination in order to avoid all processed food containing soya and soya derivatives, ie soya oil, vegetable oil and fat, flour improvers, lecithin, soya flour, soya protein.....; maize and maize derivatives, ie corn flakes, corn chips, corn starch, corn oil....; rennet in cheese and tomato paste. Many additives are also suspect.
The Stroud Campaign for Safe Food is recommending a boycott of all processed foods currently on supermarket shelves, 80% of which now contain some gm ingredients. This means a healthy return to home cooking, using basic ingredients, until processed foods can be guaranteed to be derived from non-GM identity preserved sources, as they are in the Iceland chain, the only supermarket to guarantee ingredients in all own brand products to be derived from non-gm identity preserved sources (ie they know where they were grown).
Danger to Health
GMOs are introducing an entirely unknown risk into the food chain on a massive scale without proper testing. These risks include increased antibiotic resistance, allergic reactions, toxic build up and a breakdown of the immune system.
Unnatural Science
Genetic engineering is fundamentally different from traditional cross breeding, which takes place within single species, or near relations, of plant or animal.
Genetic engineering cuts through all of nature’s safety barriers at a stroke e.g inserting fish or insect genes into a tomato. The technology is limited only by the imagination of the scientist in his laboratory (hence the name Frankenstein food).
The complexity of the DNA is not fully understood by
scientists. Forcing unnatural genetic changes at this
most basic level of nature destabilises the holistic
functioning of the DNA leading to unpredictability in the
life-cycle of the organism, weakening the plants (or
animals) and polluting the genetic information passed on
to all future generations. This genetic pollution cannot
be
> cleaned up. It will be the legacy we leave behind
for the future.
Inadequate Safety Testing
Because GMOs are unstable, they can produce unexpected toxins and allergens, dangerous to humans, animals and the environment.
The current policy of "substantial equivalence" testing, which measures only the known components of a natural organism against the GM version, is wholly inadequate as the unexpected is not what is being looked for.
If the government applied adequate safety testing, the whole technology would have to be abandoned as entirely uneconomical, but the government is not prepared to embark on such safety measures.
Control of the Food Chain
GMO patents and World Trade Organisation protection are putting the whole food chain into the control of a few giant chemical/biotech companies who have a long track record of environmental irresponsibility for the sake of profit alone. (See Ecologist Magazine "Monsanto Files" October 98.)
Government ‘Out of Touch’
Government Ministers are either concealing the truth for undisclosed reasons, ignorant about the facts concerning GM technology and its risks, or helpless to control it, and so they are promoting it (classic example - Jack Cunningham on the Radio 4 Today Programme). On this issue the Prime Minister imagines he is bravely confronting a stampede of ignorant protestors. In fact, the "stampede" he refers to comprises a huge ground-swell of well informed citizens all heading in the opposite direction, leaving him increasingly isolated. We invite him to have a change of heart and re-establish our confidence and support. Have we not learnt from previous food scares – BSE, Salmonella in eggs?
Danger to Environment
GMOs seriously threaten biodiversity on the planet through dangers of cross-pollination (already happening), through increasing reliance on vast mono-cultures in previously richly diverse areas (accelerating the destruction of small farming communities in developing countries), and through increased use of broad spectrum herbicidal chemical sprays.
The rich biodiversity of plants, animals and insects in different areas of the planet has taken billions of years to develop. The survival of the human species is intimately connected to the balance in nature, which this biodiversity represents. At this critical time, rather than further destroying the balance in nature, science should be seeking to gain a closer harmony with nature and its holistic functioning. Support of natural law is the best insurance for the future.
Denial of Choice
The sudden all pervasivness of GMO ingredients, especially Soya and maize in the food chain, is removing the choice of consumers as to what we eat and how it is produced. It is denying the fundamental right of freedom of choice.
Our Farmers at Risk
GMOs will remove the freedom of farmers to choose what they grow and how they grow it, even denying them the right to save their own seed, a practice which has been at the heart of farming since the beginning of time. Farmers in America who are tied into binding contracts with the giant biotech companies are already being sued for small contract breaches. Pinkerton detectives are even being used to make spot checks and surprise visits to check up on farmers.
The law is being used to intimidate the farmer and curtail his traditional freedoms
Disputes are also arising increasingly between farmers growing GM crops and their neighbours, especially organic farmers, because of the contamination caused by cross-pollination i.e. GM pollen carried by birds, insects and wind. GMO test sites in Britain are already posing a serious environmental threat and pollen is being carried over far greater distances than safet measures have allowed for.
Biotech companies who find crops with their patented GM plants growing among them (which could well have been carried through cross-pollination) instead of paying compensation to the farmer for contaminating his crops are likely to claim property rights over the affected plants. This is already happening in America.
Farmers and the community
Farmers are invited to re-integrate with their communities, setting up farm shops and farmers' markets to sell local, preferably organically grown, healthy produce.
The future?
Think of the world you would like to see in twenty years time and start creating it now!
STATEMENT OF
SUPPORT FOR THE STROUD DOCUMENT ON GMOS
From: Henry Brighouse on behalf of the Stroud and
Cotswold Natural Law Party
The Natural Law Party is campaigning in 80 countries for a total ban on GMOs.
The fact that an action taken by a few people can spoil the food for the whole human race, not just now, but for all generations to come, shows a profound lack of integrity in world consciousness.
The primary concern of the Natural Law Party is to create a positive, integrated consciousness in the individual, in every nation and in the world as a whole, through time-tested and well researched means, so that such dangers do not arise.
The Natural Law Party is promoting with all speed Maharishi's Vedic Technologies of Consciousness to eliminate dullness and inertia in society and bring life spontaneously in alliance with Natural Law.
Will GM crops
deliver benefits to farmers? - some realities behind
biotechnology myths
Why consumers are concerned about
GM foods
Earlier letter in Farming News on
lack of markets for GM crops
Why GM crops will put farmers at
legal risk
Chartered Surveyor Monthly on GMO
farming problems
Dorset farmers
react in support of NLP GM warnings
NLP calls for Hampshire to be
declared "GM Free Zone"
Dorset Farmers advised to avoid
GM Oilseed Rape
GM crops a threat to future
viability of farming in Hampshire
Hampshire firm develops
non-genetically engineered Soya for growing in UK
Natural Law Party campaign to ban genetically modified foods in Wessex