Farmer, activist and leader of French campaign group Confederation Paysanne, Jose Bové (left), is joined by Greenpeace GE campaigner, Arnaud Apoteker (pictured right) in tracking a bulk carrier, The Golden Lion, taking GE soya to the French port Lorient in Brittany.
"This GMO shipment should never have been sent to Europe, and we
call on the French public to go to the port in Lorient on Friday to
take part in a peaceful protest against GE soy entering the French
food chain," says Arnaud Apoteker. "Millions of tons of GE soy are
imported each year to feed cattle, hogs and poultry in Europe. This
is a slap in face for all European citizens who have rejected GMOs
in their food."
The Golden Lion is expected to arrive in Lorient, France, Friday
this week. The Monsanto 'Roundup Ready' soy onboard the ship is
destined for use in animal feed. The GMO soy expansion in Argentina
has caused the destruction of millions of hectares of rainforest
and driven small farmers and indigenous people off their land.
In Europe, strong and consistent public opposition to GMOs has
forced food producers and retailers not to use GMO ingredients
directly in food, but a big loophole in EU labelling legislation
means that eggs, meat and dairy products from animals fed with GMOs
do not have to be labelled. As a consequence food producers are
able to hide the use of GMO soy and maize in animal feed from
consumers.
Together the three organisations demand a ban on the import of
GMOs to France, and specifically call on the ports of Brittany to
reject GMO imports in line with the wishes of the regional
government, which recently declared its intention to become a
GMO-free zone (1).
"GMO crops represent the ugly head of destructive industrial
agriculture, threatening both the environment and the livelihoods
of small farmers," says Jose Bové. "We denounce the increasing
dominance of a few transnational GMO seed and pesticide companies
over the worlds farmers. We want to end this sick trade cycle where
European farmers have become dependent on dirty protein crops
shipped across the Atlantic. GMOs simply have no place in
sustainable agriculture or in quality food production."
According to a study by U.S. agronomist Charles Benbrook
published last week, the planting of 14 million hectares of
herbicide-resistant soy in Argentina has created a highly
vulnerable agricultural system that has also had severe social
impacts (2). An estimated 2.3 million hectares of forest and
savannah have been destroyed since 1996 to make room for new GMO
soy plantations, and areas that used to grow potatoes, beans and
rice and were pasture for beef and dairy cows have been replaced
with soybean production destined for export markets.
"Cutting down rainforests and threatening the home of jaguars
and pumas only to produce animal feed for European factory farming
is down-right crazy," says Arnaud Apoteker. "I don't think any food
producer or retailer in Europe can defend forests being destroyed
to produce animal feed used to make their food products, and we
expect the food industry to move swiftly to protect their
reputation among consumers."
Greenpeace, Confédération Paysanne and Les Faucheurs Volontaires
are calling on their supporters and the public to join a peaceful
and non-violent protest against the import of GMO soy in the port
of Lorient on Friday morning when the Golden Lion is due to
arrive.
Notes: 1. With EU governments on the verge of caving in to US and WTO pressure to allow (more) GMOs, European regions, cities and rural communities have responded by taking their own steps to keep GMOs away from European fields and dinner plates. Brittany is the 17th out of France's 22 regions that has adopted a form of anti-GMO resolution, thereby joining a rapidly growing movement in Europe where now 100 regions and 3500 sub-regions have declared themselves as GMO-free zones. For more information on French and European GMO-free zones, see http://www.infogm.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=231, http://www.genet-info.org/Europe.html and http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/gmofree/index.htm2. Benbrook, C.M. (2005), "Rust, Resistance, Run Down Soils, and rising Costs: Problems Facing Soybean Producers in Argentina", Ag Bio Tech InfoNet, Technical Paper Number 8, see www.greenpeace.org/international_en/reports