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- Shameful EU plans for growing 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
Shameful EU plans for growing GM crops5 March 2003
Friends of the Earth attacked EU Commission plans launched by Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler to allow GM crops to be grown along side conventional and organic crops. The controversial plans for the co-existence of GM, conventional and organic crops says that non-GM farmers such as organic producers would end up paying for taking measures to prevent GM contamination. Research last year showed that the costs for organic growers could increase by 41 per cent.
Co-existence is not only an economic problem. It ignores the environmental consequences of GM contamination or the impact it will have on consumer choice. European scientists have already stated that if GM crops are grown on a large scale then consumer choice will be threatened.
GM-free areas or countries should be excluded. The number of areas and regions wishing to be GM-free are growing throughout Europe. The Commission, whilst agreeing that this is an effective way of reducing GM contamination, opposes such moves.
The Commission also hints strongly that contamination of organic foods by GMOs should be permitted. Under current EU law, no contamination of organic food by GM material is allowed. European consumers have already made their opposition to GM foods clear with 71 per cent saying they do not want it.
"These dreadful proposals would give the biotech industry a licence to pollute our food, farming and the environment. European consumers have made it clear that they don't want GM crops - but if Fischler gets his way we will have to pay much more to avoid eating them," said Friends of the Earth's GM Campaigner, Pete Riley. "Growing GM crops will cause chaos in the countryside. Farmers will be in conflict with each other over the right to grow GM-free crops. The Commission must make it absolutely clear that the cost of GM pollution must be paid by biotech firms and those growing GM crops, and not by non-GM farmers and consumers."
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