GM Actions in France (13/9/2007)

EXTRACT: many actions… were organ­ised in France this Spring and Sum­mer:

Field clear­ings, sym­bol­ic clear­ings that deposit­ed GMO plants in front of police sta­tions or Mon­san­to offices, pol­li­na­tion of GM fields with non-GM pollen, occu­pa­tion of offi­cial plant pro­tec­tion offices, exper­i­ments show­ing the real­i­ty of con­t­a­m­i­na­tions …

—

Mes­sage from Guy Kastler, Reseau Semences Paysannes (Peas­ant Seeds Net­work)
11 Sep­tem­ber 2007
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/index.php

The offi­cial reg­istry of the French Min­istry for Agri­cul­ture only indi­cates the total sur­face of GMO cul­ti­va­tions in each region.

Green­peace has shed light on the exis­tence of a GMO par­cel of land that the Min­istry’s reg­istry failed to pub­lish. There­by Green­peace has demon­strat­ed the gov­ern­men­t’s inca­pa­bil­i­ty in ensur­ing pub­lic infor­ma­tion, sur­veil­lance on GMOs and coex­is­tence.

This action made a lot of noise as Green­peace has good com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices. But this is only one among the many actions that were organ­ised in France this Spring and Sum­mer:

Field clear­ings, sym­bol­ic clear­ings that deposit­ed GMO plants in front of police sta­tions or Mon­san­to offices, pol­li­na­tion of GM fields with non-GM pollen, occu­pa­tion of offi­cial plant pro­tec­tion offices, exper­i­ments show­ing the real­i­ty of con­t­a­m­i­na­tions …

We (REseau Semences Paysannes) are cur­rent­ly prepar­ing the sec­ond stage (mid-Octo­ber) of the mora­to­ri­um — I (Guy) will keep you updat­ed and soon send you infos about it.

Green­peace dis­cov­ers an ille­gal GM field, files a suit and calls for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on open-field cul­ti­va­tion

Press release — source not indi­cat­ed), Sep­tem­ber 5th, 2007

Bez­er­il (Gers), France

Start­ing this morn­ing at 9h30, Green­peace activists mark an ille­gal GM corn field with red food col­orant: this field is not pub­lished on the pub­lic reg­istry of the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry, as cur­rent rules in force would require.

Accord­ing to the offi­cial reg­istry, the Samatan region is sup­posed to be total­ly GM free. Through this action, Green­peace demon­strates that GM corn cul­ti­va­tions are uncon­trol­lable — in terms of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, tox­i­c­i­ty and legal­i­ty. The Gov­ern­ment must imme­di­ate­ly impose a mora­to­ri­um on open-field cul­ti­va­tions.

“We have come to denounce a crime and to file a suit with the State Attor­ney of Auch,” declares Mag­a­li Rin­goot, Green­peace GMO cam­paign­er. “We are ask­ing Gov­ern­ment Author­i­ties to ascer­tain the infrac­tion, to open an inquiry and to pro­ceed with an imme­di­ate pre­ven­tive har­vest.”

Since last March, GM cul­ti­va­tions — that is of MON810 maize, the only GM crop autho­rised in France — must com­pul­so­ri­ly be declared at the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture in order for them to be inven­to­ried by region on a pub­lic reg­istry (acces­si­ble at: http://ogm.gouv.fr).

The dead­line for dec­la­ra­tions was May 15th, 2007.

“Regard­ing open-field GM cul­ti­va­tions, France is cur­rent­ly in a total legal vac­u­um: the decrees issued last March make no men­tion in terms of lia­bil­i­ty, infor­ma­tion trans­paren­cy or the oblig­a­tion to inform one’s neigh­bours — not even on the dis­tances to keep between GM and non-GM fields,” an indig­nant Arnaud Apotek­er reports, Green­peace GMO cam­paign­er. “The Gov­ern­ment is total­ly inca­pable of mak­ing sure the rules it has estab­lished are kept, that is the oblig­a­tion to declare one’s GMO par­cel of land.”

It was pos­si­ble to detect this ille­gal field thanks to the mark­ing work car­ried out on the ter­rain by Green­peace’s “field detec­tives”. “By mark­ing this ille­gal field with red colour, our goal is not to attack the field own­er, but to put an end to this enor­mous hypocrisy that keeps repeat­ing that GMO are con­trol­lable in open fields,” con­tin­ues Mag­a­li Rin­goot. “GMOs are not con­trol­lable: on the one hand, because GMOs con­t­a­m­i­nate the envi­ron­ment, and on the oth­er, because one would need to place a police per­son in each field to know where GMOs are plant­ed exact­ly.”

“This sum­mer, under the pre­text of not want­i­ng to recon­sid­er the deci­sions tak­en before the elec­tions, the gov­ern­ment allowed the cul­ti­va­tion of over 20’000 hectares of GM maize. Result: the ill-ease in the coun­try­side grew and the cli­mate of trust nec­es­sary to pre­pare the tra­di­tion­al gov­ern­ment-CSOs meet­ing on envi­ron­men­tal issues (Grenelle de l’en­vi­ron­nement) was spoiled too,” notes Arnaud Apotek­er. “Giv­en the mas­sive pub­lic oppo­si­tion, new emerg­ing sci­en­tif­ic analy­ses show­ing tox­i­c­i­ty risks and this lat­est evi­dence that GMOs are not con­trol­lable, it would be absurd if the Gov­ern­ment did not imme­di­ate­ly decree a mora­to­ri­um on open-field cul­ti­va­tions, even before the tra­di­tion­al Grenelle meet­ing.”

Fur­ther­more, at the Euro­pean Union lev­el, France is increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed. Italy, Greece, Poland, Aus­tria and Hun­gary have already banned open-field GM cul­ti­va­tion on their ter­ri­to­ries. Apart from Spain, France is the only Euro­pean coun­try today with large scale GM cul­ti­va­tions. In Roma­nia, Green­peace activists are today block­ing access to an ille­gal GM soy field. Roma­nia banned open-field GM soy cul­ti­va­tion in Feb­ru­ary 2006, after grant­i­ng autho­ri­sa­tion for eight years.