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- Dorset demands caution over GM crops
- 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
Dorset demands caution over GM crops24 April 2003
On 24 April, Dorset became the latest council in the south-west to voice deep concern over GM crops and food, joining Cornwall and Devon in calling on the South West Regional Assembly to take a position on GM. Friends of the Earth, which launched its GM-free Britain campaign last year, welcomed the move, but said it was disappointed the council had not taken a stronger stance.
GM-free Dorset campaigners, including local farmers and beekeepers, demonstrated outside the meeting, urging councillors to go further and bid for GM-free status in the county. The resolution passed at the full council session urges the Government not to go ahead with commercial growing of GM crops in the UK until damage to human health, the environment and farmers' livelihoods is ruled out. It also calls for a south-west regional position on GM; says the council will ensure that GM foods are not supplied in council services such as school meals and says the council will investigate establishing a local food procurement policy.
The vote was close with nearly half of councillors (16 to 21) wanting to go further and declare the county GM-free and use a new EU law to stop GM crops being grown in the county.
Pressure for a GM-free South West is growing with South Gloucestershire, Cornwall, South Hams District Council and Norton Radstock Town Council voting to go GM-free. Devon County Council has stated its opposition to GM trials. The South West Regional Assembly Environment Group is to discuss its position on GM crops in June.
"Farmers, beekeepers and concerned members of the public from all over the county have travelled to Dorchester today to urge Dorset council to go GM-free," said Friends of the Earth GM Co-ordinator in the South West, Keith Hatch. "Although the council hasn't gone as far as it could to stop GM crops being grown in the county, it has made some really positive steps in the right direction, joining Cornwall and Devon's calls for a south-west position on GM. The public has made it clear they do not want GM crops in Dorset, or anywhere else in the region. The Regional Assembly must now act to protect the area as a whole."
The Government is expected to decide later this year whether to allow GM crops to be commercially grown in the UK. Commercialisation risks widespread GM contamination of food, crops and the environment.
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