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."
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