STOP THE CROP!

EU CAMPAIGN TO PREVENT RELEASE OF NEW GM CROPS

Government must protect farmers & consumers from health impacts

GM-Free Ireland press release, 19 March 2013

A video news release, including interviews with farmers, researchers, campaigners and politicians on the upcoming authorisations of new GM crops is available in English, French and German, along with other materials. All materials are open-source and are available here: http://www.itnproductions.co.uk/CEO/

Watch the full film: www.stopthecrop.org/watch-full-film

Short video news release: http://www.itnproductions.co.uk/CEO/GM_Edit_v2_CLEAN.mov

For more information on the campaign, please visit: http://www.stopthecrop.org

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GENEVA, Switzerland, 19 March 2013 — European farmers and NGOs yesterday launched a campaign to prevent approval of new GMO crops for cultivation in European fields. [1]

The Stop the Crop campaign involves a highly informative short film featuring scientists, farmers and campaigners who expose the damage caused by GM crops, especially those that require spraying with Monsanto’s toxic herbicide Roundup, which they are genetically engineered to survive. [2]

The film, entitled “Stop GM Crops in Europe”, includes reports by experts about some of the devastating long-term health damage in humans and animals caused by GM farming and related herbicide residues. The impacts include cancers, leukemia and birth defects. [3]

Nina Holland of Corporate Europe Observatory [4] said: “Currently, the EU imports soy from large-scale monoculture plantations in South America, causing not only deforestation and displacement of people, but also a public health disaster among rural communities living nearby. In those areas, citizens have taken legal action and have brought soy farmers and agribusiness companies to court.”

The campaign calls for people across Europe to lobby their environment ministers to reject the approval of new herbicide-resistant GM crops. It urges us all to consider the damage they have already done in North and South America, and learn from the mistakes of this failed technology.

If released, these patented GMO crops will increase corporate control of the food chain, and contaminate conventional and organic farmers. In the USA Monsanto has so far sued 410 farmers and 56 farm companies for patent infringement. Contaminated European farmers could also face patent infringement lawsuits, with no clear liability. [5]

As Mute Schimpf of Friends of the Earth Europe points out, “GM crops are unnecessary, risky and profit large multinational companies at the expense of small scale and sustainable farming. The public clearly demands greener farming that doesn’t include genetically modified crops or foods. It’s time to plough all our resources into making farming really sustainable and to stop pandering to the biotech industry and their empty promises of reducing hunger or feeding the world.” [6]

Ireland must act to protect farmers and consumers from health impacts

This Thursday 21 March Phil Hogan – Ireland’s Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government – will attend the EU Environmental Council in Brussels to discuss the authorisation of 25 new GM crops for cultivation in EU member states. These include numerous varieties of patented GMO soybeans, maize, oilseed rape and sugar beets that are either resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, and/or produce their own pesticide. These GM crops are not currently allowed for cultivation in the EU, although Ireland imports millions of tonnes of GM soy and GM maize for animal feed. [7]

If approved for cultivation and actually grown by farmers in Europe, they will drastically change the way we produce food across the continent – including massive spraying of extremely toxic pesticides that will contaminate our drinking water and food supply chains, contaminate conventional and organic farms, reduce biodiversity, and poison farmers and consumers.

Michael O’Callaghan of GM-free Ireland called on Irish citizens to lobby the minister ahead of Thursday’s meeting. “We must hold Phil Hogan accountable to vote against these new GM crops. The Minister’s mission statement is ‘to pursue sustainable development’, and his statutory responsibilities include to ‘achieve a high quality environment with effective environmental protection’, to ‘protect and improve water resources and the quality of drinking water’, and to ‘support and enable democratic and responsive local government.’ Introducing GM crops in Ireland or any other EU member state would violate all of these responsibilities.”

Keeping this island of-limits to GM crops presents an untapped opportunity for Irish farmers and food producers to brand their produce with a GM-free Irish food label, and thus secure a unique selling point – the most credible GM-free food brand in Europe. [8]

Allowing GM crops to be grown in Ireland would destroy this opportunity. Irish citizens must not allow Minister Hogan to let this happen.

About the Stop the Crop campaign

The Stop the Crop campaign was launched yesterday by Corporate Europe Observatory and Friends of the Earth Europe, with support from food and farming groups across Europe including European Coordination of Via Campesina, European Environment Bureau (EEB), Genet Inf, OMG Romania, Food and Water Watch, GMWatch, Save Our Seeds, Slow Food Germany, Slow Food Italy, Bioforum, Oikos, Climaxi, AIAB, and Firab. It was funded by DG Environment and the JMG foundation.

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