Living with GMOs - a letter from America
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- Published on Saturday, 15 November 2014 12:49
NGOs, scientists, anti-GM groups, celebrities, food manufacturers, and others representing 57 million Americans today publish an Open Letter to the UK and the entire EU warning of the serious and manifold hazards of GMO crops - and promising their support in our fight against them. We are writing as concerned American citizens to share with you our experience of genetically modified (GM) crops and the resulting damage to our agricultural system and adulteration of our food supply.
In our country, GM crops account for about half of harvested cropland. Around 94% of the soy, 93% of corn (maize) and 96% of cotton grown is GM.
The UK and the rest of the EU have yet to adopt GM crops in the way that we have, but you are currently under tremendous pressure from governments, biotech lobbyists, and large corporations to adopt what we now regard as a failing agricultural technology....
Patent industry selling out future of our food
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- Published on Tuesday, 28 October 2014 05:32
New report published about patents on seeds and call for a public protest
23 October 2014 The international coalition of No Patents on Seeds! today published a report on patents on seeds. The report was prompted by the fact that the European Patent Office (EPO) has already granted several thousand patents on plants and seeds, with a steadily increasing number of patents on plants and seeds derived from conventional breeding. Around 2400 patents on plants and 1400 patents on animals have been granted in Europe since the 1980s. More than 7500 patent applications for plants and around 5000 patents for animals are pending. Amongst others, the EPO has already granted more than 120 patents on conventional breeding and about 1000 such patent applications are pending. The scope of many of the patents is extremely broad and very often covers the whole food chain from production to consumption.
Amongst the patents granted recently, are 'inventions' such as peppers bred from wild varieties originating from Jamaica, tomatoes that were developed through sourcing the international gene bank in Germany, sunflowers from random mutagenesis and a selection of wild relatives of soybeans found in Asia and Australia.
Start of an International Call to Stop Genetically Engineered Organisms Spreading into the Environment!
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- Published on Thursday, 31 July 2014 04:50
Contents:
(Spanish below)
MEDIA RELEASE
Start of an international call to stop genetically engineered organisms spreading into the environment!
Coalition calls for the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to take action
16 May 2014 – Today sees the start of an international call by a broad coalition of organisations to stop the spread of genetically engineered organisms into the environment. The initiative says that binding regulations must be implemented to prevent the release of genetically engineered plants that can persist and invade the environment or lead to transgene flow into native populations or local varieties at centres of origin and of genetic diversity. The organisations will be approaching the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and encouraging them to become actively involved. The CBD, under its Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, requests that effective measures are taken to protect biodiversity and prevent unintended transboundary movements of genetically engineered organisms.
Monsanto's 'Roundup Ready' GM maize could be growing in Europe next year.
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- Published on Tuesday, 15 July 2014 09:17
Press Release
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- Published on Monday, 17 February 2014 19:39
Here is the Press Release (in English and Polish) which accompanies our Polish Embassy protest at 2:30 on 20th February. Please circulate! Get your banners together! We hope to see as many of you as possible on the 20th – this is an important event – not just for Poland – but for all family farms of Europe and beyond! See you…
Poniżej znajdziecie notę prasową (po anglielsku i po polsku) w związku z planowanym protestem pod Polską Ambasadą w Londynie. Prosimy o nagłośnienie i przybycie z odpowiednimi banerami 20 lutego o godz. 14:30. Sprawa jest ważna nie tylko dla Polski lecz dla całej Europy i dalej! Do zobaczenia…
Julian and Jadwiga
PRESS RELEASE
“Polish Family Farms Criminalised for Local Food Sales”
The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and local supporters of Polish family farms are staging a protest outside the Polish Embassy in London – 47 Portland Place, London W1B 1JH at 14.30 on 20th February 2014, to highlight the excessively harsh hygiene and sanitary regulations imposed upon small Polish farmers wishing to direct-sell their traditional farmhouse foods.
ALERT Polish farmers in protest since mid January
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- Published on Wednesday, 05 February 2014 06:07
Friends!
Here in Poland the battle to save Polish farmland from corporate buy-outs' continues. But that's not all the Polish farmers are up against...See link to film below. Tractors have been blockading government institutions from 14 January 2014 ...
Regulations that the Warsaw government has imposed over the years have made it virtually impossible to sell farm processed foods to local shops, schools or private individuals. The only way farmers can conform with the hygiene and sanitary regulations imposed from above, is by carrying out their simple processing tasks in specially designed and equipped buildings that none can afford to build or to adapt.. except the very large producers supplying the food industry and supermarkets. Yes, that's right - it's all about destroying the competition - which in this case is the small and medium sized independent family farms that produce the best foods!
Read more: ALERT Polish farmers in protest since mid January
