NOW it is Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) which the transnational corporations have foisted on us, with or without the connivance of UK governments (according to your point of view).
The debate in this country has concentrated on the dangers to us of poor labelling of produce in supermarkets. Unfortunately it is far more serious than that, particularly in the Third World and for the small farmer in this country.
Third World farmers cultivate 80 per cent of their crops from seeds obtained from previous years' crops. Thus they are cost-free and also compatible with the indigenous soil and climate.
Now firms like Monsanto and Zeneca, by genetically modifying these crops, have not only effectively taken out a patent on what was a natural vegetation - thus preventing farmers from producing their own seeds - but have developed a crop which is sterile after one year. Monsanto have a seed called Roundup which, while resistant to one pesticide will produce only one crop. Guess what: the pesticide is also called Roundup and is only obtainable from Monsanto.
Small farmers will fold, leaving the way open for the agri-business, which is even now destroying natural organic farming in India and releasing genetic mutations about whose future damage they neither know nor care.
Contrary to their assertion that the Third World needs this to combat famine, they are causing the very problem which they purport to solve while the real problem is not one of shortage but of distribution.
A Bio-Protocol in Colombia on February 23, with 170 nations taking part, collapsed when so many concessions were made to the USA lobbyists (the USA did not take part) that it was rendered useless.
The small farmer and the consumer need to be protected. I urge readers to write to their MPs and to John Prescott demanding that this Government co-operate in restoring and adhering to this protocol. The address is: The Rt Hon John Prescott MP, Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DU.
JIM HOMEWOOD,
Carr Avenue,
Prestwich
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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