EXTRACT: many actions… were organised in France this Spring and Summer:
Field clearings, symbolic clearings that deposited GMO plants in front of police stations or Monsanto offices, pollination of GM fields with non-GM pollen, occupation of official plant protection offices, experiments showing the reality of contaminations …
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Message from Guy Kastler, Reseau Semences Paysannes (Peasant Seeds Network)
11 September 2007
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/index.php
The official registry of the French Ministry for Agriculture only indicates the total surface of GMO cultivations in each region.
Greenpeace has shed light on the existence of a GMO parcel of land that the Ministry’s registry failed to publish. Thereby Greenpeace has demonstrated the government’s incapability in ensuring public information, surveillance on GMOs and coexistence.
This action made a lot of noise as Greenpeace has good communication services. But this is only one among the many actions that were organised in France this Spring and Summer:
Field clearings, symbolic clearings that deposited GMO plants in front of police stations or Monsanto offices, pollination of GM fields with non-GM pollen, occupation of official plant protection offices, experiments showing the reality of contaminations …
We (REseau Semences Paysannes) are currently preparing the second stage (mid-October) of the moratorium – I (Guy) will keep you updated and soon send you infos about it.
Greenpeace discovers an illegal GM field, files a suit and calls for an immediate moratorium on open-field cultivation
Press release – source not indicated), September 5th, 2007
Bezeril (Gers), France
Starting this morning at 9h30, Greenpeace activists mark an illegal GM corn field with red food colorant: this field is not published on the public registry of the Agriculture Ministry, as current rules in force would require.
According to the official registry, the Samatan region is supposed to be totally GM free. Through this action, Greenpeace demonstrates that GM corn cultivations are uncontrollable – in terms of contamination, toxicity and legality. The Government must immediately impose a moratorium on open-field cultivations.
“We have come to denounce a crime and to file a suit with the State Attorney of Auch,” declares Magali Ringoot, Greenpeace GMO campaigner. “We are asking Government Authorities to ascertain the infraction, to open an inquiry and to proceed with an immediate preventive harvest.”
Since last March, GM cultivations – that is of MON810 maize, the only GM crop authorised in France – must compulsorily be declared at the Ministry of Agriculture in order for them to be inventoried by region on a public registry (accessible at: http://ogm.gouv.fr).
The deadline for declarations was May 15th, 2007.
“Regarding open-field GM cultivations, France is currently in a total legal vacuum: the decrees issued last March make no mention in terms of liability, information transparency or the obligation to inform one’s neighbours – not even on the distances to keep between GM and non-GM fields,” an indignant Arnaud Apoteker reports, Greenpeace GMO campaigner. “The Government is totally incapable of making sure the rules it has established are kept, that is the obligation to declare one’s GMO parcel of land.”
It was possible to detect this illegal field thanks to the marking work carried out on the terrain by Greenpeace’s “field detectives”. “By marking this illegal field with red colour, our goal is not to attack the field owner, but to put an end to this enormous hypocrisy that keeps repeating that GMO are controllable in open fields,” continues Magali Ringoot. “GMOs are not controllable: on the one hand, because GMOs contaminate the environment, and on the other, because one would need to place a police person in each field to know where GMOs are planted exactly.”
“This summer, under the pretext of not wanting to reconsider the decisions taken before the elections, the government allowed the cultivation of over 20’000 hectares of GM maize. Result: the ill-ease in the countryside grew and the climate of trust necessary to prepare the traditional government-CSOs meeting on environmental issues (Grenelle de l’environnement) was spoiled too,” notes Arnaud Apoteker. “Given the massive public opposition, new emerging scientific analyses showing toxicity risks and this latest evidence that GMOs are not controllable, it would be absurd if the Government did not immediately decree a moratorium on open-field cultivations, even before the traditional Grenelle meeting.”
Furthermore, at the European Union level, France is increasingly isolated. Italy, Greece, Poland, Austria and Hungary have already banned open-field GM cultivation on their territories. Apart from Spain, France is the only European country today with large scale GM cultivations. In Romania, Greenpeace activists are today blocking access to an illegal GM soy field. Romania banned open-field GM soy cultivation in February 2006, after granting authorisation for eight years.