Clare Oxborrow

3 October 2007

Friends of the Earth's Food Campaigner Clare Oxborrow lives for food. It's what she gets up for in the morning. It's what she talks about most of the day.

Food has always been my passion. I really care about the way it's produced, the right we all have to eat fresh, healthy food - and the right of all farmers to make a decent living out of it.

Eats for breakfast?

Decision makers who are doing the wrong thing. I love putting them on the spot. At the moment we're looking at legally challenging the Food Standards Agency for failing to stop rice contaminated with illegal GM ingredients from being sold in our shops.

Most memorable meal?

Lunch (mainly liquid) on the day in 2004 when we heard that biotech company Bayer had scrapped its plans to grow a GM maize commercially in the UK . Our campaign had exposed the dodgy science supporting the crop and revealed that no one could guarantee GM would not contaminate conventional crops.

What leaves a bitter taste?

The Government, quite often. They recently asked us, the public, how much GM contamination we want in our food and farming - not if we want it, but how much. We're saying we don't want any of it. No one needs GM. More and more evidence is showing environmental damage where it's grown. And its long-term effects on our health are unknown.

Recipe for success?

Shift the balance of power in the food chain. A lot of the problems we're facing are about big companies controlling the way our food is produced. The majority of GM worldwide is grown by just three multinationals. Monsanto controls 90 per cent of all GM seeds and, conveniently, also manufactures the weedkiller that has to be used with it. Double the profit. Control of the production chain.

Favourite food?

Avocado from my local community fair trade organic corn-fed free-range market. Good for my skin. I still get asked for ID at our local organic pub.

When not eating?

Skiing in Switzerland. Don't fly, won't fly because it makes climate change worse - and if it gets hotter, the snow will melt, which is bad. I go by train.

Friends of the Earth is campaigning to stop GM crops being grown in the UK and to remove pesticide residues from our food by finding safer ways of protecting crops and phasing out risky chemicals.