Activists plant 'good' potatoes
Our 20 acitivists planted 450 kg of the alternative starch potatoes Henriette and Eliane from Avebe on 1,5 ha. The whole field acreage for cultivation of Amflora is 20ha.
It is the only field in Germany where Amflora is intended to be cultivated ( in the federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the East - the agriculture minister of this federal state Mr. Backhausen, announced on Monday that he is against the culivation of the Amflora potato).
14/04/2010 Greenpeace activists plant GE (genetically engineered) free potatoes called 'Henriette' and 'Eliane' in a field in Buetow, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany in defiance of the planting GE potato 'Amflora' designated in the near future.
The potato varieties that the activists planted today, Henriette and Eliane, are also starch potatoes which can be used for the production of paper or building materials, just like the GE potato Amflora. But they do not run any risk of having an impact on human health or the environment. The activists try to plant 10,000 GE-free starch potatoes.
What Greenpeace demands from the agriculture minister Ilse Aigner (CSU), is to stop the cultivation and distribution of the Amflora potato. "Conventional bred starch potatoes produce a similar amount of starch as the Amflora and furthermore they have better yields", says Martin Hofstetter, Agriculture campaigner from Greenpeace Germany. "We want to give with this activity a clear signal for the ge-free agriculture. The GE potato is risky, antiquated and absolutely needless."
Greenpeace tested the different starch potatoes in a laboratory to find out more about the starch concentration. These analysis show that the conventional potatoes and the GE potato have more or less the same starch concentration. The Henriette and Eliane potato varieties are producing approximately as much Amylopektin/Amylopectin starch as Amflora.
The cultivation of Amflora violates the EU law. A legal opinion from Greenpeace shows in accordance with the 2001/18/EG that GE plants which contain a antibiotic resistant gene are not allowed to be circulated in the EU.
"The cultivation of Amflora on the 20ha in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern now, threatens the long term outlook for GE-free cultivation of some 260,000ha potatoes in Germany", says Hofstetter. " The cultivation of Amflora means more effort and costs for farmers and food producers ."
With 1 million citizens' signatures, we can make an official legal request to the European Commission. The request is to put a ban on GE-foods until sufficient research has been done of the effects on our health and the environment. Sign the petition and let's get to 1 million!
Picture credit: © Bente Stachowske / Greenpeace