Pressure put on Argentina to withdraw from GM trade dispute1 April 2004
On the day the EU's new laws on labeling Genetically Modified (GM) products came into force, anti-GM campaigners renewed their call on the Argentinian Government to withdraw from the US-led World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade dispute over the technology.
Friends of the Earth and the Gaia Foundation delivered their message to the Argentinian Embassy on 19 April with a basket of English and Argentinian organic food and wine.
Meanwhile campaigners in Argentina targeted their own government with a demonstration outside their Foreign Affairs Department saying:
If we can't get the opportunity to talk with them, we will shout in the streets.
Europe's precautionary approach to GM has also resulted in biotech giant Bayer recently pulling out of plans to grow GM crops in the UK.
Even Bayer knows better than Blair that the British public don't want GM here. The US and Argentina should respect our wishes and stop trying to get the WTO to tell us what to eat and grow.
Eve Mitchell,
Trade campaigner, Friends of the Earth
New WTO complaint?
But campaigners fear that Argentina and the US are aiming to undermine the European GM food labelling legislation by initiating a new WTO dispute.
Argentina's Agriculture Secretary stated in December 2003 that while his country had asked the US to take action on labeling, they are prepared to challenge the new EU laws at the WTO on their own.
Friends of the Earth believes big business is pushing the trade agenda within the WTO. For example the American Soybean Association, a powerful lobby group, is already taking pledges toward the US$1 million needed to hire a law firm to prepare a second dispute.
