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Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 06:26:25 -0500
To: info@natural-law.ca
From: Richard Wolfson <rwolfson@concentric.net>
Subject: GE News- 2 articles/updates
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Thanks to Lorna Hancock <lorna@intergate.bc.ca> and Health Action Network
Society <hans@hans.org> for forwarding the following message from Consumers
International <consint@popmail.dircon.co.uk>
Subject: Use Your Voice, DEMAND A CHOICE!!
USE YOUR VOICE - DEMAND A CHOICE! CAMPAIGN TO LABEL GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD
http://www.consumersinternational.org/campaigns/codex/
You have a right to safe food and to know about the food you and your
children eat!
Do you want to know if your food has been genetically engineered?
Yes? Then demand your basic consumer right to information. Support
Consumers International's campaign calling for mandatory and comprehensive
labelling of all genetically modified foods.
>From Consumers International's campaign site, you can send a free fax to
the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the United Nations' food standards
agency. Demand that they set a guideline for the labelling of genetically
modified foods!
Visit: http://www.consumersinternational.org/campaign/codex/
More and more, food is being genetically modified. Already, modified
tomatoes, soybeans, papayas, squash, potatoes and rapeseed are on dinner
tables in some countries. Consumers have the right to know if their food is
genetically modified.
Demand your consumer right to information and act now - send your fax
through CI's web-site!
The campaign site also carries:
* Consumers International's response to the Codex Alimentarius proposal
on the labelling of genetically modified foods.
* Background information on the Codex Alimentarius Commission
* Background and briefing information on genetic engineering and why
genetically engineered foods should be labelled.
* Actions to support the campaign, including a free fax from the site to
the Codex Alimentarius Commission
* Regular news updates on the campaign
For more information please contact Sara Jarvis on codexcampaign@consint.org
Sara Jarvis, Development Assistant, Consumers International,
24 Highbury Crescent London, N5 1RX, UK
Tel: +44 171 226 6663 #203
Fax: +44 171 354 0607
E-mail: sjarvis@consint.org
Web: http://www.consumersinternational.org/
Tell Codex to label all genetically modified foods!
Demand a choice at www.consumersinternational.org/campaigns/codex/
....................................
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 18:01:21 +1100
To: "GeneEthics Network" <acfgenet@peg.apc.org>
From: acfgenet@peg.apc.org (Bob Phelps)
Subject: Genetic Engineering will not Feed the World
All Codex Delegates, FYI
Genetic Engineering will not Feed the World
by Bob Phelps
Like the Green Revolution, the Gene Revolution, will intensify the huge
environmental, social and health costs of industrial agriculture.
Agribusiness may appear to deliver cheap food and fibre to Western
consumers through global markets but its promotion of gene technology as
the cure-all for world hunger is a cruel hoax.
Chemical/industrial agriculture produced rural poverty and dispossession in
Australia, and hundreds of millions of Third World people suffer chronic
starvation, urban slums, landlessness, and unemployment. CSIRO's Land and
Water Division says two hundred years of Euro-centred farming has caused
massive soil loss, salination, water pollution, species extinctions and
desertification. Our ecosystems are being depleted at a rate far beyond
replacement. For example, each kilo of grain fed to feedlot beef and
battery chickens costs up to five kilos of topsoil, washed or blown away.
We must reform the ways we are fed, clothed and housed.
Two main choices for agricultural production are now offered - the Gene
Revolution or Sustainable Ecological Farming Systems. Genetic engineering
would entrench industrial agriculture, through greater corporate control,
just when The World Watch Institute is warning that the amount of food it
can produce is in long term decline. In contrast, organics promise truly
fresh, clean, green production, more employment and local food security.
Australian governments, committed to free trade and global markets, back
the factory farming model and genetic engineering. Hundreds of millions of
taxpayer dollars are pumped into engineering plants, animals and microbes
to suit our degraded environments, to grow bulk commodities for trade. But
as former CSIRO Chair Professor Adrienne Clarke laments, most of the genes
being manipulated are already patented by foreign seed, chemical and food
processing giants - the same companies which have pushed mechanisation,
synthetic chemicals and crop monocultures for the past fifty years. Their
aim is monopoly control, with every organism creating royalty and profit
flows back to head office.
The first genetically engineered whole food is Monsanto's Roundup Ready
Soybean, engineered to tolerate Monsanto's own herbicide Roundup. Growers
spray the toxic chemical on their fields and plants, more often, less
carefully, and at higher doses, to kill weeds better. The gene beans are
grown separately but are mixed after harvest with conventional soybeans as
the company and US government aggressively refuse to keep them separate.
Roundup has a half-life of 60 days in soil and two weeks in water, and
Monsanto has asked the Food Authority for a 200-fold increase (.1mg/kg to
20 mg/kg) in allowable Roundup residues in imported soybeans.
A majority of processed foods contain soy or soy products. The gene beans
also contain potential allergens - microbial genes, new proteins, and
increased chemical residues. There are no history of safe use, premarket
human tests, and labels.
Herbicide tolerant canola and cotton are now intended for Australian farms.
In contrast to the genetic/chemical option, Modern Ecological Farming
Systems could feed the world, produce environmental benefits, create
permanent jobs, revitalise rural communities, strengthen local food
self-reliance, and offer a healthier diet. A large body of modern,
sustainable farming know-how exists in Permaculture, Organic and Biodynamic
methods, from experience over the past four thousand years. These systems
are successfully used by growers and seed-savers who use natural processes,
ban synthetic chemicals, conserve scarce water, and restore depleted soils.
But more official support is needed for the transition from agribusiness to
agriculture. Governments offer few development resources as organic
methods, traditional wisdom, and natural seed varieties cannot be patented
or monopolised, and companies denied control and profits are disinterested.
Support the transition by spending your food dollars wisely, on foods from
Ecological Farming Systems. Choose foods certified organic or biodynamic.
Avoid any product with 'soy protein isolate' or 'soy protein' on its
ingredient list. Buy products labelled as free from genetically engineered
ingredients.
Together, we can make a difference.
First published in The Canberra Times and The Gene File.
Bob Phelps
Director
Australian GeneEthics Network
c/- ACF 340 Gore Street, Fitzroy. 3065 Australia Tel: (03) 9416.2222 Fax:
(03) 9416.0767 {Int Code (613)} email: acfgenet@peg.apc.org
WWW: http://www.peg.apc.org/~acfgenet (under construction)
_________________________________________________________
Richard Wolfson, PhD
Consumer Right to Know Campaign,
for Mandatory Labelling and Long-term
Testing of all Genetically Engineered Foods,
500 Wilbrod Street
Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6N2
tel. 613-565-8517 fax. 613-565-1596
email: rwolfson@concentric.net
Our website, http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/geindex.html
contains more information on genetic engineering as well as
previous genetic engineering news items
Subscription fee to genetic engineering news is $35 for 12 months
See website for details.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
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