GMW: Voices of support for action against commercial GMOs

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GMW: Voices of support for action against commercial GMOs

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 23:26:31 +0100

 

 

 

 

 

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More details of the action

www.gendreck-weg.de

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Support for the first public action against commercial GMOs in Germany.

 

Statements by Prof. Dr. Michael Succow, Percy Schmeiser, Melaku Worede,

Zafrullah Chowdhury, Vandana Shiva, Jose Bove, Sven Giegold and Tewolde

Berhan Egziabher.

 

Sven Giegold

Attac, Germany

I support the action because:

" A vast majority of consumers do not want GMOs in

agriculture. Politics is propagating it nevertheless.

Therefore civil disobedience is now a legitimate method which supports

our successful consumer boycott. "

 

Percy Schmeiser

Farmer, Canada

I support the action because:

" I've been using my own seeds for years, and now farmers like me are

being told we can't do that anymore if our neighbours are growing

(genetically

modified) crops. "

 

Tewolde Berhan Egziabher

Minister of the Environment,

Ethiopia

I support the action because:

" Genetic technology is no remedy for the poor countries of this world,

because the profit-oriented gentechcompanies will not be able to do

good business there in the long term. The genetic diversity available

today is more than sufficient to solve the problems of feeding the

poorest.

Badly

informed governments and corrupt members of

governments everywhere in the world are the main obstacle to an

objective discussion of the true problems of world food supplies. The

merciless forces of the free market, which in the wake of

globalisation is

taking on a cynical, inhuman

character, deprive the poorest of the poor of any basis for making a

living. We have to ask the questions of the future: our governments have

to give priority to the longterm protection of the earth atmosphere and

to biodiversity, and then we will be able to solve the problems of

globalisaiton: poverty, exodus of employment, energy use, radicalisation

and climate change. Time is pressing. "

 

Melaku Worede,

Seeds of Survival,

Prizewinner of the Right

Livelihood Award, Ethiopia

I support the action because:

" Our planet is full of genetic diversity, thanks to which humanity has

secured its food supplies over centuries in the most variable climatic

zones of the earth. This biodiversity has always been the foundation

for the satisfaction of basic human needs. It is naive and irresponsible

to go for genetic technology, as long as hundreds of thousands of human

beings are starving in this world

because of political chaos, problems of distribution, the privatisation

of the right of access to water and through corruption. "

 

Prof. Dr. Michael Succow

Uni Greifswald, Deutschland

I support the action because:

" What the world needs more urgently than ever are healthy soils and

healthy plants. This can only be done through environmentally sensitive

farming. This is the only way to safeguard employment in

agriculture. With the 'miracle cure' of genetic technology we only make

the ecological and social problems of our times even worse, resulting

in damage to human beings and nature. "

 

Zafrullah Chowdhury

Physicist, Founder of

The Peoples' Health Center,

Bangladesh

I support the action because:

" The Third World doesn't need genetic technology. What's most important

for us is sustainable agriculture, which can cope with local conditions

and manages without growth-retarding substances or insecticides.

Gentech is only going to produce new crop failures and

insecticidepoisons. "

 

Vandana Shiva

Prizewinner of the Right Livelihood Award, India

I support the action because:

" Genetic technology destroys the cultural inheritance of rural

agriculture. Hunger and misery will increase if we allow agro-genetic

technology to spread. World food supplies can only be secured through

seeds

adapted to local conditions. "

 

Jose Bove

Farmer, France

I support the action because:

" GMO's are a problem for the whole of Europe. We can only prevent

agricultural gentech by not letting the seeds enter Europe at all. All

of us

have to stick together against genetic grub, for quality food. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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