Category: Genetics

GM sunflowers — Faucheurs Volontaires in action

2 Sep­tem­ber 2012

Press release

In the ear­ly hours of 2nd Sep­tem­ber, a hun­dred Faucheurs Volon­taires (vol­un­tary reapers of GM) from all over France simul­ta­ne­ous­ly decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed 8 test fields in the Isère region and 1 in the Drôme.

2 Sep­tem­ber 2012

Press release

In the ear­ly hours of 2nd Sep­tem­ber, a hun­dred Faucheurs Volon­taires (vol­un­tary reapers of GM) from all over France simul­ta­ne­ous­ly decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed 8 test fields in the Isère region and 1 in the Drôme.

Par cette action que nous assumons pleine­ment, nous voulons : met­tre en évi­dence qu’une par­tie impor­tante des sur­faces de tour­nesol de la région a été semée avec des var­iétés mutées, issues de tech­nolo­gies brevetées, tolérantes à des her­bi­cides, véri­ta­bles OGM qui ne dis­ent pas leur nom. Dénon­cer le pas­sage en force des firmes semen­cières et des opéra­teurs de la fil­ière, qui cachent aux paysans la véri­ta­ble nature de ces var­iétés. C’est la poli­tique du fait accom­pli : on colonise les champs, ensuite on dis­cutera.

Par ailleurs, aucune traça­bil­ité ni éti­que­tage n’est exigée pour les pro­duits de con­som­ma­tion humaine (graines et huile de tour­nesol) et ani­males (graines et tourteaux) Les récoltes de ces par­celles seront mélangées avec les récoltes con­ven­tion­nelles et se retrou­veront donc dans nos assi­ettes

Nous atten­dons du min­istre de l’agriculture et des Ser­vices de l’Etat : qu’ils garan­tis­sent aux con­som­ma­teurs la lib­erté de con­som­mer sans OGM qu’ils agis­sent pour que ces tech­nolo­gies ne soient plus exclues du champ d’application de la direc­tive européenne 2001–18 sur les OGM (alors qu’elle les définit comme tels : art 2 et 3)

Ces var­iétés de tour­nesol muté con­stituent des impass­es tech­niques : tou­jours plus de pes­ti­cides, risques de résis­tance de l’ambroisie… Les pro­duc­teurs doivent les refuser et ne pas se laiss­er embar­quer dans cette spi­rale qui les ren­dent encore plus dépen­dants des firmes semen­cières agrochim­iques

PAS D’OGM DANS NOS CHAMPS ET NOS ASSIETTES QU’ILS SOIENT ISSUS DE TRANSGENESE OU DE MUTAGENESE

Les Faucheurs Volon­taires

Netherlands: destruction of potato GM trial site

Two GM pota­to tri­al fields at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wagenin­gen were destroyed by activists in July and August 2012. 

The pota­to tri­als were for mildew resis­tance.  They were in Lelystad and Valther­mond. It was only recent­ly, on 16th August, that the destruc­tion was dis­cov­ered.  The action has not been claimed. 

Two GM pota­to tri­al fields at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wagenin­gen were destroyed by activists in July and August 2012. 

The pota­to tri­als were for mildew resis­tance.  They were in Lelystad and Valther­mond. It was only recent­ly, on 16th August, that the destruc­tion was dis­cov­ered.  The action has not been claimed. 

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update — programme, directions, website and more

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

The Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place each year to pro­vide a space in which the rad­i­cal ecol­o­gy move­ment can share skills and plan for future cam­paigns and actions.

Dis­cus­sions around the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty build­ing in inner cities, the state of the anar­chist move­ment and patri­archy in activism.

Skill shares includ­ing wom­en’s self-defence, research­ing cor­po­ra­tions and nav­i­ga­tion.

Cam­paign round ups from Frack Off! Smash Edo and Lud­dites 2000 amongst oth­ers.

If you have work­shops you like to run or dis­cus­sions you’d like to facil­i­tate then email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

Full pro­gramme.

Camp­ing is on a slid­ing scale of £30 to £15, pay what is gen­uine­ly appro­pri­ate.

Food will be from Anar­chist Teapot and meal tick­ets will be £5 a day.

Kids can have sep­a­rate meals if they want for £3 a day.

There will be a cou­ple of kids spaces, and spe­cial work­shops being ran for kids. If you’d like to run any kids work­shops get in touch at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net.

If you want you dog to come along then you’re going to have to email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

And of course there will be enter­tain­ment and a bar open in the evenings.

The camp is ½ mile from the Berring­ton vil­lage, and 1 mile from the larg­er vil­lage of Cross Hous­es.

We encour­age non-cycling campers to use pub­lic trans­port if pos­si­ble as Cross Hous­es is on a bus route.

BY TRAIN
The near­est train sta­tion is Shrews­bury. You can then get the bus to Cross Hous­es (see below). If com­ing from a long dis­tance it can some­times be cheap­er to get a tick­et to a large sta­tion such as Birm­ing­ham, Wolver­hamp­ton, Man­ches­ter or Crewe and then a sep­a­rate tick­et on to Shrews­bury. Check nation­al rail for train times and prices. If com­ing from the Lon­don direc­tion, it’s gen­er­al­ly cheap­er to buy a Super Off­peak Return, spec­i­fy­ing “Lon­don Mid­land & Arri­va only”.

BY BIKE
See here for direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.

BY BUS
When you arrive at Shrews­bury train sta­tion, ask some­one to point you to the bus sta­tion. It’s only a few min­utes walk from the train sta­tion. The bus ser­vice that runs from town to with­in a mile of Crabap­ple is the 436 towards Bridg­north. It runs every hour from 7.40am to 5.40pm with a “late” one at 7.40pm. The jour­ney to Cross Hous­es is approx 15 mins. You will need to press the stop but­ton when you see the sign for Cross Hous­es. Some of the ser­vices on this route are low-floor acces­si­ble bus­es. Please note that the last bus leaves Shrews­bury at 7.40pm, Mon­day to Sat­ur­day and there are no Sun­day bus ser­vices. For the bus timetable see here http://shropshire.gov.uk/bustimes/timetable.jsc?timetable=436mfi0412.
The camp itself is about 1 mile from the bus stop. From the bus stop at Cross Hous­es, walk back towards Shrews­bury past the petrol sta­tion (on your right) and take the first left turn signed “Berring­ton”. After about ½ mile, the road forks at the edge of the vil­lage. Take the right turn sign­post­ed “Bet­ton Abbots” and we’re about ¼ mile up the road on the right.
If you intend to come by bus but need help get­ting to and from the bus stop, you can arrange a pick up with us: details will be avail­able near­er the time.

BY TAXI
There is also a taxi rank just out­side Shrews­bury train sta­tion. Acces­si­ble taxis can be got from here.- but it is MUCH cheap­er to book a cab from a local com­pa­ny – Comet Cabs 01743 344444, or Vin­cent Cabs 01743 367777. Vin­cents also have a book­ing office just across the road from the sta­tion, which is handy if you don’t have a phone to book a cab in advance.

USEFUL LINKS
See here direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.
See a map of where the site is here
See the bus timetable
Direc­tions from places oth­er than Shrews­bury

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Col­lec­tive
earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

http://earthfirstgathering.weebly.com

Agriculture Action Camp 5–10 July Den Bosch NL

From the 5th till 10th of July in Den Bosch in the Nether­lands, ASEED will orga­nize a 6 days long camp. The camp will involve work­shops, train­ings, dis­cus­sions, and action, for good eco­log­i­cal ini­tia­tives, an alter­na­tive food chain, alter­na­tives to indus­tri­al farm­ing, and against gen­tech and meat indus­try, and more.. 

From the 5th till 10th of July in Den Bosch in the Nether­lands, ASEED will orga­nize a 6 days long camp. The camp will involve work­shops, train­ings, dis­cus­sions, and action, for good eco­log­i­cal ini­tia­tives, an alter­na­tive food chain, alter­na­tives to indus­tri­al farm­ing, and against gen­tech and meat indus­try, and more.. 

Do you know where your food comes from? Do you want to take food in your own hands and make the food chain short­er between the farm­ers and con­sumers? Do you also want to know more about the strug­gle against GMOs and indus­tri­al farm­ing that is dom­i­nat­ed by big com­pa­nies? Do you want to orga­nize actions against the meat indus­try and the imports of ani­mal feed? But you are also inter­est­ed in pro­duc­ing your own food on a sus­tain­able, cli­mate neu­tral, autonomous and social way? Are you not afraid of get­ting your hands dirty in a work­shop? All of these and more will be cov­ered dur­ing the camp. We invite activists, slow-food­ies, farm­ers, gar­den­ers, stu­dents, ani­mal friends and peo­ple who want to learn and share skills on sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture to come to the camp. Mark your agen­das and join in! 

Landbouwactiekamp-9-ah-spandoek-450-medium

Landbouwactiekamp-medium

Last year the first Agri­cul­ture Action Camp in The Nether­lands took place in the Flevopold­er with 70 par­tic­i­pants camp­ing on an organ­ic farm for three days. We had a pro­gram full of work­shops and dis­cus­sions, and two actions close to the camp against GM crops and soy green­wash­ing. The par­tic­i­pants opt­ed for a replay, so here comes the sec­ond camp once again with an inter­est­ing pro­gramme of work­shops, train­ings, action and nice atmos­phere.

Hel­lo every­body, 
We are get­ting clos­er to the date it is all going to start, the loca­tion will be in the city of Den Bosch (or ‘s Her­to­gen­bosch) in and around a squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty gar­den project Graafse Hof in a res­i­den­tial area in the East of the city. The work­shop pro­gram is get­ting more and more con­crete. Con­firmed are amongst oth­er things: GMO update by Green­peace, GMO field lib­er­a­tion move­ments by FLM Bel­gium (more contributions/examples 
from sim­i­lar move­ments in oth­er coun­tries wel­come!!), intro­duc­tion into dif­fer­ent forms of sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture sys­tems (bio­dy­nam­ic, agroe­col­o­gy, per­ma­cul­ture), seed sav­ing, worm com­post­ing, get­ting to know your gar­den­ing tools, action train­ings by Vre­desac­tie, trac­tor dri­ving, talks with and work­ing with farm­ers, food sov­er­eign­ty: what does it mean, Euro­pean move­ment, con­crete exam­ples, and more to come. The pro­gram starts on Thurs­day 5th in the evening and goes on till Mon­day 9th July. 

Give a Work­shop? 
Want to come and give a work­shop your­self? Great! We are in par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed to hear about reclaim the fields land occu­pa­tion actions, or sim­i­lar campaigns/initiatives going on, as well as the Reclaim the fields move­ment in gen­er­al. Also look­ing for some­one who can tell more about the Euro­pean Cam­paign for Seed Sov­er­eign­ty. But any­thing rel­e­vant, you’re wel­come to pro­pose. 

Info stall @ mini alter­na­tive agro fair on Sat­ur­day 7 July, 13.00? 
Sat­ur­day we want to focus on get­ting more main­stream peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in the camp. The work­shops are more intro­duc­to­ry and their will be a small fair. Want to have stall to spread mate­ri­als from your project or action group? Let us know. 

Net­working @ World­cafe on Sat­ur­day 7 July, 20.00 
Sat­ur­daynight we will turn a tent into a nice cafe, where every­one can come to exchange ideas and exam­ples. Organ­i­sa­tions, Ini­tia­tives and Indi­vid­u­als have the oppor­tu­ni­ty for reser­vat­ing a table, where peo­ple can sit around to have infor­mal con­ver­sa­tions. Want to have a table your project/initiative/campaign? read more here: 
 http://landbouwactiekamp.contrast.org/?page_id=181 

Action 
Mon­day July 9 will have a focus on doing one or more actions. Pos­si­ble targets/topics are men­tioned in the call out from before. The camp will decide col­lec­tive­ly what it will become at the begin­ning of the week­end. 

Finances & trav­el costs reim­burse­ments 
We have some fund­ing for the camp but not enough to cov­er all costs, so we would ask a par­tic­i­pants for a con­tri­bu­tion of 7,50 if you come 1 day, less per day if you stay longer (see the web­site under prac­ti­cal­i­ties). 
We have some lim­it­ed pos­si­bil­i­ties to (par­tial­ly) cov­er trav­el costs from peo­ple com­ing from abroad, AND com­ing on the 4th of July (help build up) and/or stay till 11th (help break down). Let us know if you want to come, and trav­el costs are an issue. If you can trav­el on one of these dates, we can prob­a­bly reim­burse (some) costs. 

Want to reserve a work­shop slot, info stall or world­cafe table, or just know more about  the camp, con­tact us via  landbouwactiekamp@aseed.net. 

We still need peo­ple to; 
-make the kids pro­gram and orga­nize the kids area in the camp 
-help us with the infra­struc­ture prepa­ra­tions of the camp, & be there on the 4th to set up the camp, 
-trans­la­tion and edit­ing texts,(NL, ENG, DE main­ly) 
-help us out with pro­gram con­tent, 
-facil­i­tate work­shops, trans­la­tion dur­ing the work­shops etc.. 

Cheers and hope to see some of you @ Den Bosch. 

ASEED

http://www.landbouwactiekamp.net/

Take the Flour Back

More than 400 grow­ers, bak­ers and fam­i­lies from across Eng­land, Ire­land, Scot­land, Wales, France and Bel­gium marched against the return of open air GM field test­ing today. Take the Flour Back linked arms with their Euro­pean coun­ter­parts, notably France’s Vol­un­teer Reapers and walked calm­ly towards the site, before being stopped by police lines.

Kate Bell from Take the Flour Back stat­ed that “In the past, kids, grannies, and every­one in between has decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed GM tri­al sites togeth­er. Here at the begin­ning of a new resis­tance to this obso­lete tech­nol­o­gy, we see GM hid­den behind a fortress. We want­ed to do the respon­si­ble thing and remove the threat of GM con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, sad­ly it wasn’t pos­si­ble to do that effec­tive­ly today. How­ev­er, we stand arm in arm with farm­ers and grow­ers from around the world, who are pre­pared to risk their free­dom to stop the impo­si­tion of GM crops.”

Peo­ple enjoyed a GM free pic­nic whilst lis­ten­ing to a range of speak­ers oppos­ing the tri­al, includ­ing Gra­ciela Romero, Inter­na­tion­al Pro­grammes Direc­tor of UK devel­op­ment char­i­ty War on Want. Lawrence Wood­ward, pre­vi­ous­ly Direc­tor of Elm Farm Organ­ic Research Cen­tre, for­mer head of stan­dards at the Soil Asso­ci­a­tion, and now involved in Cit­i­zens con­cerned about GM. Plus sev­er­al British farm­ers includ­ing Peter Lund­gren, a con­ven­tion­al wheat farmer from Lin­colnshire.

Gath­u­ru Mbu­ru, co-ordi­na­tor of the African Bio­di­ver­si­ty Net­work, spoke on the glob­al fight for con­trol of our food sup­ply.

Mbu­ru explained that:

“Exper­i­ment­ing with sta­ple crops is a seri­ous threat to food secu­ri­ty. Our resilience comes from diver­si­ty, not the mono­cul­tures of GM. Beneath the rhetoric that GM is the key to feed­ing a hun­gry world, there is a very dif­fer­ent sto­ry – a sto­ry of con­trol and prof­it. The fact is that we need a diver­si­ty of genet­ic traits in food crops in order to sur­vive wors­en­ing cli­mates. Above all, peo­ple need to have con­trol over their seeds”

This state­ment is released amongst grow­ing calls for the sci­en­tists to demon­strate sen­si­tiv­i­ty to pub­lic con­cern by har­vest­ing the crop before pol­li­na­tion, remov­ing any risk of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion with non-GM plants.

Two peo­ple were arrest­ed for tres­pas­so­ry assem­bly and oth­ers were searched and escort­ed on their way to the park, or searched on their way out.  Foot­paths had been closed by order, huge num­bers of cops and secu­ri­ty were in place, a cam­era on a cher­ry-pick­er close to the open-air exper­i­ment, and a spe­cial Sec­tion 14a Tres­pas­so­ry Assem­bly applied to a large area.  The peo­ple arrest­ed were in a small group, though this is only an offence for groups of 20 or more peo­ple and they may well not have known 14a was in force.

GM wheat trial vandalised

Sun­day 20 May 2012

Sci­en­tists are assess­ing the dam­age after a GM wheat tri­al was van­dalised at the Rotham­st­ed Research cen­tre in Hert­ford­shire.

The GM tri­al, con­duct­ed by sci­en­tists from Rotham­st­ed Research in Hert­ford­shire, aims to see whether trans­genic wheat can repel aphids in the field.

Sun­day 20 May 2012

Sci­en­tists are assess­ing the dam­age after a GM wheat tri­al was van­dalised at the Rotham­st­ed Research cen­tre in Hert­ford­shire.

The GM tri­al, con­duct­ed by sci­en­tists from Rotham­st­ed Research in Hert­ford­shire, aims to see whether trans­genic wheat can repel aphids in the field.

It is under­stood that part of the exper­i­men­tal crop has been van­dalised and at least one per­son has been arrest­ed.

Details of the attack start­ed to emerge in a series of tweets by Rotham­st­ed sci­en­tist Toby Bruce on  Sun­day (20 May).

“Just heard there’s been an attack on our field tri­al, don’t know if crops were van­dalised,” he wrote. “Very sad.”

Dr Bruce is lead­ing the trans­genic wheat research project at Rotham­st­ed.

A spokesman for Rotham­st­ed said a state­ment was like­ly to be issued lat­er.

The non-com­mer­cial tri­al is being spon­sored by Biotech­nol­o­gy and Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences Research Coun­cil.

“There was one intrud­er who has spread wheat seed on to three of the plots, but no appar­ent  dam­age,” Dr Bruce revealed. “He has been arrest­ed.”

Dr Bruce lat­er added: “Oh dear, there’s more: Dam­age to plot 7 where he has cut off the tops of quite a few of the plants and col­lect­ed the mate­r­i­al.”

It is not known at this stage who was respon­si­ble for the attack. But anti-GM activists have been plan­ning a “mass action” against the GM tri­al.

The “Take the Flour Back!” web­site urges oppo­nents to GM crops to meet one week lat­er at Rotham­st­ed, on Sun­day (27 May).

It adds: “Or take your own action in your own way, at your own time. Togeth­er we can stop this tri­al.”

The web­site includes a map show­ing the loca­tion of the GM wheat tri­al.

Ear­li­er, Rotham­st­ed sicen­tists plead­ed with anti-GM cam­paign­ers not to destroy the exper­i­men­tal plots.

An online peti­tion to muster sup­port for the sci­en­tists was signed by more than 5,000 peo­ple, includ­ing the actor and broad­cast­er Stephen Fry.

But the protest group Take The Flour Back refused to back down, vow­ing to “decon­t­a­m­i­nate” the site unless the research was halt­ed.

Take the Flour Back! anti-GM wheat action 27 May — final details

‘Take the Flour Back’ will be a nice day out in the coun­try, with pic­nics, music from Seize the Day and a decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion. It’s for any­one who feels able to pub­li­cal­ly help remove this threat and those who want to show their sup­port for them.

What to bring, action you should take before the 27th May, trans­port info and more info on the web­site — http://taketheflourback.org/

How to get there, OS map and pho­to of the new fence

Take the Flour Back! Mass action against GM wheat — meetup point announced

Take the flour back!
Sun­day 27th May 2012
 
Pub­lic day of action against the Rotham­st­ed genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied wheat tri­al.
 
Meet-up point: Rotham­st­ed Park, Harp­en­den, Herts (30 mins from Lon­don by train) 12 noon on 27th May. At 1.30pm we’ll take a 20 minute stroll on pub­lic foot­paths to the tri­al site.

Fre­quent trains run from Lon­don to Harp­en­den – the jour­ney takes 30 mins from St Pan­cras. A ten minute walk from Harp­en­den Sta­tion gets you to the park. Direc­tions avail­able at the sta­tion.

Check back to our web­site for legal brief­in­gs near­er the time.

 
—-
 
Bak­ers, farm­ers, grow­ers, allot­ment hold­ers, sci­en­tists, bee­keep­ers, and peo­ple who eat food are turn­ing out to voice their oppo­si­tion to GM crops com­ing back to the UK.
 
Meet Sun­day 27th May, at 12 noon, in Rotham­st­ed, Harp­en­den, Herts. Or take your own action in your own way, at your own time. Togeth­er we can stop this tri­al.
 
Cow genes on toast any­one? No thanks!
 
 
What’s up with the tri­al?
 
It could be dan­ger­ous.
This tri­al is test­ing a brand-new syn­thet­i­cal­ly-con­struct­ed ‘fake’ gene that is ‘most sim­i­lar to one found in a cow’. This is a con­cern­ing use of syn­thet­ic genes and of ani­mal genes in plants.
 
It’s not want­ed.
Even the USA has aban­doned attempts to com­mer­cialise GM wheat because there is no mar­ket for it. Biotech com­pa­ny BASF recent­ly backed out of Europe because no-one want­ed to buy GM food.
 
Once it flow­ers, it’s here to stay.
The tri­al is hap­pen­ing in the open air, mean­ing that when it starts to flower it can cross con­t­a­m­i­nate oth­er wheat crops and wild grass­es. This is a real threat. In Cana­da there is no organ­ic oilseed rape left because all the farms have been cross-con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with GM rape­seed.
 
For more info near­er the time, go to www.taketheflourback.org or con­tact us at info [AT] taketheflourback.org

Shut Down the Corporations: Report from F29 actions against ALEC

29th Feb­ru­ary 2012

29th Feb­ru­ary 2012

Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca sent out this report today about the Shut Down the Cor­po­ra­tions call to action: “#F29 is off to bang this morn­ing with actions across the coun­try. big props to our Ris­ing Tide & Occu­py com­rades in Port­land for ini­ti­at­ing this great day of action.

The tar­get of the day is the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Com­mis­sion, or ALEC, & their mem­ber cor­po­ra­tions. ALEC is the shad­owy front group that has been push­ing a right wing agen­da on every­thing from labor to cli­mate change.

Here’s some updates:

-Occu­py­LA is blockad­ing a mas­sive Wal-Mart Dis­tro Cen­ter
-Occu­py Wall Street had a teach-in with Rolling Stone jour­nal­ist Matt Taib­bi & is see­ing march­es to Pfiz­er, block­ades at Bank of Amer­i­ca & lots of heavy hand­ed police repres­sion (shock­ing, we know)
-Occu­py­DC is blockad­ing Monsanto’s offices
-Actions are step­ping off in Ari­zona, Salt Lake City, Con­necti­cut, Hat­ties­burg, MS, Far­go, ND, Lake­land, FL, Tam­pa, FL, and Win­ston-Salem, NC.
-Today at 1130, Occu­py­Port­land has orga­nized a mass march to vis­it all ALEC offices in the city.

here’s the Glob­al Live Blog if you want to keep up

Great arti­cle this morn­ing on Moth­er Jones

…sol­i­dar­i­ty, RTNA News”

And check out this video of a block­ade of G4S secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny today in Tuc­son, AZ: http://youtu.be/AB5MZDdjHck

Take the Flour Back — a mass action against Genetically Modified wheat

Take the flour back!
Sunday 27th May 2012

Public day of action against the Rothamsted genetically modified wheat trial.

 

Take the flour back!
Sunday 27th May 2012

Public day of action against the Rothamsted genetically modified wheat trial.

 

Bak­ers, farm­ers, grow­ers, allot­ment hold­ers, sci­en­tists, bee­keep­ers, and peo­ple who eat food are turn­ing out to voice their oppo­si­tion to GM crops com­ing back to the UK.
Meet Sun­day 27th May, at 12 noon, in Rotham­st­ed, Harp­en­den, Herts. Or take your own action in your own way, at your own time. Togeth­er we can stop this tri­al.

Cow genes on toast anyone? No thanks!

What’s up with the tri­al?

It could be dangerous

This tri­al is test­ing a brand-new syn­thet­i­cal­ly-con­struct­ed ‘fake’ gene that is ‘most sim­i­lar to one found in a cow’. This is the first use of syn­thet­ic genes in the UK, and a con­cern­ing use of ani­mal genes in plants.

It’s not wanted

Even Amer­i­ca has aban­doned attempts to com­mer­cialise GM wheat because there is no mar­ket for it. Biotech com­pa­ny BASF recent­ly backed out of Europe because no-one want­ed to buy GM food.

Once it flowers, it’s here to stay

The tri­al is hap­pen­ing in the open air, mean­ing that when it starts to flower it can cross con­t­a­m­i­nate oth­er wheat crops and wild grass­es. This is a real threat. In Cana­da there is no organ­ic oilseed rape left because all the farms have been cross-con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with GM rape.