Author: earthfirst

As with the Green­peace action the pre­vi­ous week, the Smash Genetix action was tar­get­ed at GM fod­der maize. Unlike its oilseed rape, AgrEvo’s GM maize already has con­sent to be grown in the Euro­pean Union. This means that the gov­ern­ment is under no oblig­a­tion to inform the pub­lic, or oth­er farm­ers or bee-keep­ers about where it is being grown. For this rea­son con­cerned mem­bers of the pub­lic and local agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­ers have to play detec­tive to find out whether their pro­duce is at risk from con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. Detailed research final­ly iden­ti­fied the right farm but unfor­tu­nate­ly incor­rect sci­en­tif­ic analy­sis led activists to the wrong field.

Eighty activists ini­tial­ly out­foxed the police, and in a well co-ordi­nat­ed action destroyed a field of maize. How­ev­er, two hours lat­er, the police arrived and began round­ing up activists. Some man­aged to get away by run­ning along ditch­es and hedgerows or hid­ing in the under­growth, but 46 peo­ple were arrest­ed. All were ini­tial­ly charged with crim­i­nal dam­age, as well as con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age, which would have meant a jury tri­al.

In an obvi­ous­ly polit­i­cal move the con­spir­a­cy charge was lat­er dropped, along with all charges against 22 peo­ple. The remain­ing 24 have had their charges changed to the less­er charge of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass. The court date will be 19th Jan­u­ary 2000.

This action, more than any, high­lights the secre­cy with which these tri­als are con­duct­ed. It is evi­dent that the gov­ern­ment sup­ports the inter­ests of big busi­ness over small local pro­duc­ers whose prod­ucts may be pol­lut­ed with­out them even know­ing.

On 5th August three mem­bers from GenetiX Snow­ball open­ly and account­ably trashed an AgrE­vo test site, break­ing an injunc­tion served against them. They took the bagged up crops to AgrE­vil’s HQ in Nor­folk where the staff were total­ly phased, despite the fact that they had been sent a let­ter say­ing they were going to break their injunc­tions. At an impromp­tu press con­fer­ence AgrE­vo claimed that Snow­ball had the wrong site, until a jour­nal­ist point­ed out the injunc­tion signs sur­round­ing it. Final­ly they were allowed to hand in the bag of GM oilseed rape and their state­ments and injunc­tions. Over two months lat­er they are still await­ing their com­mit­tal papers!!

Green­peace Nor­folk GM action

The fol­low­ing week­end, Green­peace activists, includ­ing its exec­u­tive direc­tor Lord Melchett, decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed a GM maize farm-scale tri­al in Lyng, Nor­folk.

This action, in which 28 peo­ple were arrest­ed, could have turned into a tragedy when the farmer who owned the land, William Brigham, became vio­lent, dri­ving a trac­tor into the mow­er which was dri­ven onto the field to destroy the maize, as well as chas­ing the activists around the field. Of those arrest­ed, only Lord Melchett was remand­ed, and his treat­ment ignit­ed a long-await­ed debate in the press regard­ing direct action and whether it is the action of a small unrep­re­sen­ta­tive minor­i­ty who want to derail the demo­c­ra­t­ic process. The gov­ern­ment would say that, would­n’t it! Unfor­tu­nate­ly, much of the press debate focused on ‘estab­lish­ment mav­er­ick’ Melchett, rather than the valid­i­ty of farm-scale tri­als or why ordi­nary peo­ple take action. Because the police arrived before the site was com­plete­ly destroyed, the tri­al remains valid.

No-one fan­cied going back to fin­ish off the job and pos­si­bly meet­ing rabid farmer Brigham again! Those arrest­ed await a court date for a crown court tri­al.

Scot­tish GE simul­ta­ne­ous decon­t­a­m­i­na­tions

Some oth­er local actions and events Scot­land — Scot­tish Genetix Action report that on Sat­ur­day 24th July 1999, in a simul­ta­ne­ous action, GM oilseed rape test sites in Edin­burgh and Aberdeen were destroyed. Scot­tish Genetix Action will con­tin­ue to cam­paign for a GMO-free Scot­land.

In Watling­ton, Oxford­shire, the cam­paign against the farm-scale tri­al had been run­ning from the moment the test plots were announced. Stalls were held in the town and an organ­ic pic­nic was organ­ised along with a walk to the site. By lucky coin­ci­dence, lit­er­al­ly metres away from the Mod­el Farm GM test site, lay an aban­doned farm house with an over­grown gar­den full of wild flow­ers. This swift­ly became the Alter­na­tive Mod­el Farm for two weeks, with beau­ti­ful dis­plays of per­ma­cul­ture and organ­ic farm­ing meth­ods. Open days were held for the gen­er­al pub­lic to decide which ‘mod­el’ of the future they want­ed.

On Sun­day 18th July, a beau­ti­ful sum­mer’s day, locals min­gled with cam­paign­ers and con­cerned indi­vid­u­als from all over the coun­try at a ral­ly addressed by Not­ting­ham South MP, Alan Simp­son; Swin­don cam­paign­er, Jean Saun­ders; a local food writer, Lin­da Brown; Jim Thomas from Green­peace, and George Mon­biot, jour­nal­ist, cam­paign­er and all-round defend­er of truth and jus­tice! At the end of the ral­ly over 600 peo­ple, dressed in white paper decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion suits and wav­ing bio­haz­ard flags, large bum­ble-bees and ban­ners went to sym­bol­i­cal­ly sur­round the site. But then, like a scene out of Brave­heart, they just walked through the con­ven­tion­al con­trol oilseed rape onto the GM oilseed rape itself.

An hour and a half lat­er the site was almost total­ly destroyed. Although the crop had already pol­li­nat­ed, the test site was ren­dered sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly use­less. As the last pro­tes­tors were return­ing to the ral­ly site police rein­force­ments, includ­ing hors­es fresh from a demo at Hill­grove Cat-Breed­ing Farm, attempt­ed to snatch peo­ple ran­dom­ly out of the crowd and scat­ter it with hors­es. A mount­ed police­men lift­ed one woman up by her hair. The ensu­ing chaos pro­vid­ed the media with pic­tures of ‘vio­lence’, allow­ing them to por­tray­ing the jubi­lant and good-humoured crowd as an angry mob.

This provo­ca­tion can only be seen as a delib­er­ate attempt to belit­tle what was an extreme­ly empow­er­ing, sig­nif­i­cant and, above all, peace­ful action — one of the biggest in the recent his­to­ry of the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. For many peo­ple attend­ing, this was the first time they had tak­en direct action against the genet­ic pol­lu­tion escap­ing into the beau­ti­ful Oxford­shire coun­try­side. A last­ing image will be that of an eighty-year old woman, with­out a suit, qui­et­ly pulling up the oilseed rape.

“One of the many things that has uni­fied the huge oppo­si­tion to GE in this coun­try has been the peace­ful nature of all Genet­ic Events. Please do every­thing you can to ensure that it con­tin­ues in the same peace­ful vein and enjoy it” From a leaflet dis­trib­uted at the ral­ly.