Anti-GMO Day - April 17
Posted 19th April 2001

(translated from French, photo shows genetically modified corn, photo courtesy the Prince of Wales) The ideal would be to definitively remove from the planet any GMO", quietly declares a French farmer committed for ten years to this combat, which could seem that of the earthen pot against the iron pot (of the agrochemical multinationals). And yet, after the successive businesses of hormone beef, mad cow and foot-and-mouth disease, French public opinion appears ripe to hear a new warning in the name of the principle of precaution concerning genetically modified organisms. By requiring for example rigorous labelling of products likely to contain GMO. The farming world would be the first to be accused if a new health alarm emerged, blaming animal feed or fish, underline farmers who do not belong inevitably to the Farm Confederation of Jose Bove.

Thus, GMO were found in fodder intended for animals sold under the organic label, the Swiss Federal Office of Agriculture announced March 11. FAO and WHO, who published on April 12 recommendations concerning the risk of allergic reactions caused by certain GMO to people suffering from food allergies, bring a heavy caution to "anti-GMO" French who are organizing on April 17 a day of action against GMO and the "patenting of life". This world day, launched by the network of country organizations Via Campesina (Country Way), based in Honduras, is relayed in France by a "Collective of 17 April" joining together the Farm Confederation (member of the network), ATTAC, Doctors of the world, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Ecoropa, Chiche and GMO:Dangers. It intends to sensitize the general public to the concerns caused by a technology for which no one, not even the scientists who preach it, can in the long term certify the effects on human health, emphasizes the collective. Debates, forums and consumer information activities are in particular envisaged in several towns in France, in particular in front of big companies selling products containing GMO.

A "remarkable deed" must be aimed Tuesday at the scientific interest group Genoplante at Evry which is supported 70% by public... But the largest charge made against GMO by the collective, beyond the potential health danger, is the state of deep dependence in which the agrochemical multinationals place the farmers who use them, especially in developing countries. The seeds of GMO being "sterile", the farmers are "captive" customers, obliged to repurchase their seeds each year with "associated products", knowing that to use a weedkiller or pesticide running on a culture of GMO would destroy it at once, explains the farm Confederation.