Posted on 19-9-2002

GE Economic Disaster

A damning new report from the UK Soil Association demonstrates that GE food
crops have been a practical and economic disaster, estimated to have cost
the US economy at least NZ$ 25 billion between 1999 and 2001 in farm
subsidies, lower crop prices, loss of major export markets and product
recalls. UK Soil Association director, Patrick Holden said on National
Radio this morning that: “the technical difficulties of containment look to
be nearly insuperable and the [farmers] right of choice has been
insidiously eroded by the introduction of GM crops."

According to the report: Widespread GE contamination at all levels of the
food and farming industry has severely disrupted GE-free production,
destroyed trade and undermined the competitiveness of North American
agriculture overall. GE crops have also increased the reliance of farmers
on herbicides and led to many legal challenges. Farmers are not achieving
the higher profits promised as markets for GE food collapse. The extent of
problems with GE crops has compelled over 200 groups representing farmers
and the organic sector in the USA and Canada to call for a moratorium on
the introduction of the next major proposed GE food crop, GE wheat. The new
report states that: “In North America farmer ignorance was one of the
biotechnology industry’s greatest marketing assets, explaining to a large
extent how GE crops were introduced there in the first place.”