Newsletter
- Home >
- News & Events >
- News >
- Natural Resources news >
- Archive >
- 2003 >
- Local campaigners call for GM-free Britain election pledge
- 2003
- 10 reasons supermarket mergers are bad for consumers, farmers and small businesses
- Asda spinach over pesticide levels
- Asda/Wal-Mart exploits planning loophole
- Biting back at GM crops
- Blair sacks Meacher
- Committee Stage for Recycling Bill
- Cornwall goes GM-free
- Credibility of GM public debate hangs by a thread
- Cumbria goes GM-free
- Deplorable attack on GM scientific critic
- Devon votes to go GM-free
- Dorset demands caution over GM crops
- EU commission calls for GM contamination of organic food to be allowed
- EU meets US over GM trade war
- Farmers and consumers must have a say in Wal-Mart takeover
- Fat cats fight over Safeway, consumers and farmers are real losers
- Fat-cat Tesco: putting on the pounds at farmers' expense
- Garden pesticides health warning
- GM activists make a pilgrimage for a GM-free Britain
- GM activists make a pilgrimage for a GM-free Britain
- GM beet research answers very few questions
- GM contamination - Government experts disagree
- GM jury challenges FSA policy on labelling
- GM public debate fiasco
- GM study highlights need for urgent rethink over GM crops
- GM trade war - who decides what we eat?
- GM trade war accelerates
- GM won't cure hunger in Africa
- GM-free food could be "impossible"
- Government agrees to delay GM debate
- Government failing to regulate supermarkets, says new report
- Government launches GM debate
- Government may ignore public opinion on GM crops
- Government must address GM debate chaos say groups
- Government must clarify role of GM debate
- Government opposes tough Euro GM rules
- Government report on economics of GM crops
- Government to publish GM science review
- Government urges MEPs to vote for GM food
- Government warns GM farmers over contamination threat
- Hundreds of pesticides banned
- Hundreds turn out for Waste lobby
- Illegal GM contamination threat
- Is Tesco spin on Safeway takeover a joke?
- Lake District National Park first to go GM-free
- Lake District National Park to host GM debate
- Local campaigners call for GM-free Britain election pledge
- MEPs back tougher GM labels
- Ministers try to stop GM food labels
- Morrisons take-over bad news for consumers
- MPs call for extension to GM national debate
- New analysis casts doubt on GM farm scale evaluations
- New maps reveal massive extent of GM pollution threat
- Pesticide review fails consumers and farmers
- Recycling Bill clears the Commons
- Safeway decision must wait for code review
- Sainsbury's: making life taste bitter for banana growers
- Scepticism as GM debate ends
- Second reading for Recycling Bill
- Shameful EU plans for growing GM crops
- Shropshire goes gm-free
- Slow progress on pesticide residues
- Slow progress on pesticide residues
- South Gloucestershire votes to go GM-free
- South Hams votes to go GM-free
- Stop Safeway stitch-up, alliance demands
- Supermarket code fails farmers
- Supermarket code fails farmers
- Supermarkets continue to shun GM food
- Supermarkets must be blocked from Safeway takeover
- The US ghost fleet – behind the hype
- UK votes to keep highly toxic pesticide
- UN treaty regulating GM to become law
- Uncertainty over GM safety
- US files WTO GM complaint
- US threat over GM food
- Warwickshire goes GM-free
- Why the Safeway take-over must be stopped
Local campaigners call for GM-free Britain election pledge 12 April 2003
Scores of community groups around the country called on their local authorities to become GM-free on 12 April while local councillors geared up for the May elections. GM food and crops remain a key environmental and consumer issue for the public. Local authorities are being asked to pledge not to use GM food in schools and to make a formal submission to the Government and the European Commission to prevent GM crops being grown in their area.
As part of Friends of the Earth's GM-Free Britain Campaign, around 80 groups built giant GM-Free collages symbolising local concern over GM which they will present them to their local councils, urging them to go GM-free. They also called on local election candidates and councilors to show their support for going GM-free. Councils need to act now before the Government and the European Commission decide later this year whether to allow the widespread growing of GM crops across Europe. If given the go-ahead, GM crops risk contaminating the local environment, food, farmland and wildlife and threaten the viability of growing organic food.
Friends of the Earth launched an interactive website at www.gmfreebritain.com to coincide with the day of action, giving the public the chance to email their local council and ask them to go GM-free.
"It really is now or never if we are going to stop the introduction of GM crops in this country," said Friends of the Earth GM Campaigner, Clare Oxborrow. "And it is now or never for candidates in the local elections. They have a chance to show they support the GM-free Britain campaign by pledging to push their own council to go GM-free, as a growing number of councils have already done. The more local councils declare themselves GM-free the stronger the signal to the Government that people don't want GM crops grown in their areas, threatening their local food, organic farming and the environment."
Get these updates first
If you would like these news updates to be emailed to you as soon as they come out, then join our real food mailing list.
Register Here
Discuss "Local campaigners call for GM-free Britain election pledge " in our forum