Building a million votes against GM foods in Europe

Time to sit up and take action on this – armchair action anyway: signing an e-petition.

The European Commission has just approved growing genetically modified crops in the European Union for the first time in 12 years!

Submitting to  powerful GM lobby, driven by the major supermarket chains with an eye to cheaper food and even higher profit margins, the Commission has ignored 60% of Europeans who feel that one has to get the facts first before growing foods that could pose a threat to our health and environment.

There exists either the research base nor the secure cultivation conditions protecting other crops and the environment from the invasion of GM plants.

A new European initiative requires the Commission to consider as a legal request anything put to it by one million EU citizens.

Avaaz, the international organization that promotes activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, and religious conflicts, exists ‘to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform global decision-making’.

People across Europe are concerned about the premature rush to growing GM foods  – called the ‘Frankenstein foods’ because they are created by crossing the genetic nature of plants not only with other plants but with animals and potentially humans. This particular hybridisation produces disease-resistant plants, cheaply grown without the need for chemical protection.

Examples of foods already contaminated include the humble tomato – to which a gene from fish has been introduced. It is also all but impossible to find soya beans – and therefore  soya products – which are GM free. America took the GM route a long time ago and dominates soya production.

Avaaz is calling for people across Europe – who feel that the growing of GM foods should not take place before the research is there to determine the areas of risk – to sign an e-petition they have launched to build the million votes to lodge a legal request with the European Commission.

The completed petition will be delivered to the President of the European Commission, Manuel Barroso.

Please sign the Avaaz petition and email the link to this article or to the e-petition to friends and family.

Scotland has reason to be concerned. The Blair administration, with supermarket chief, Lord Sainsbury as an unpaid Food Minister, drove through a trial growing of GM rape seed in the Black Isle in the Cromarty Firth. It was shown that containment of these plants had, not surprisingly, failed, with pollenation and winds contributing to the escapes.