GE soya dumping exposed in Thailand

Feature story - 19 November, 2003
Our activists have deployed two inflatables off the port of Srichang Island in Thailand to label the large cargo ship MV Poseidon by painting a giant "X" and the letters "GMOs" on the side of the ship, exposing that Thailand has become the dumping ground of genetically engineered (GE) soya from the US and Argentina. A cordon of flags declaring "Stop GMO Dumping" in front of the ship to marked it as a quarantine zone.

Greenpeace activists paint a giant 'X' and the letters 'GMOs' on the hull of the MV Poseidon, a bulk-carrier transporting genetically engineered (GE) soy from Argentina to Thailand.

Thailand imports more than 1 million tonnes of soya every year, with the largest coming from Argentina and the US. These two countries are the world's largest producers and exporters of GE soya. GE soya accounts for 99 percent of all soya grown in Argentina, and 80 percent of soya grown in the US.

"This is one of the many sources of GE soya entering Thailand. Through different channels they contaminate the food chain and end up on supermarket shelves. But the Thai public does not know which products are contaminated or how it got there. The weak GE labelling regulation does not give the public a genuine right to know and right to say no to GE food," said Varoonvarn Svangsopakul, our GE Campaigner in Southeast Asia.

More from our site in SE Asia, also in Thai.