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Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 1:48 PM
Subject: EU GM Policy and perspective
Hi All,
Here is the latest from our Dr Caroline Jackson, EU MP for the South West, on the GM contamination issue. This woman has the supreme confidence borne only of total ignorance of her subject. (Incidentally, her PhD is in 19th century politics...). In fact I find her arrogance breathtaking...she has studiously ignored every argument I have presented so far.
Any contributions/ideas / facts to present to her would be welcomed.
regards
Mike
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: RE: Apocalypse tomorrow?
From: "JACKSON Caroline" cjackson@europarl.eu.int
Date: Mon, March 13, 2006 10:39
To: "Mike Abrahams" wildoats@blueyonder.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr Abrahams,
Thank you for your e mail on the subject of GM presence in organic food.
I don't share your views and am not prepared to support them with the
European Commission,
Given the likelihood of more GM crops being grown world wide, and the
distinct possibility that GM techniques may now offer a new way of
producing foods better tailored to dietary requirements (obesity etc), it
seems to me sensible for EU organic farmers to accept and indeed welcome
the Commission's position. Otherwise they will find that if their organic
crops do contain very low levels of GM material, possibly by accident,
they will be ruled as non-organic and could lose their organic status. As
I understand it organic products can contain up to 5% of non-organic
matter anyway, under existing rules.
It is, incidentally, deliberately misleading to describe the presence of
GM matter as "contamination" since this is a word chosen to signify
danger. In fact any GM crop grown in the EU has probably been cleared as
safe by the scrutiny of more experts than non GM crops
Yours sincerely
Caroline Jackson MEP
_____
From: Mike Abrahams [ mailto:wildoats@blueyonder.co.uk]
Sent: 11 March 2006 11:34
To: JACKSON Caroline
Dear Dr Jackson,
The EU in its wisdom is about to permit the contamination of organic and
natural produce to a level of 0.9%. What might this mean? Well, please
read on...
Mutation: - In biology, a change to the genetic material (usually DNA or
RNA) of an organism. Mutant: - A cell microorganism that manifests new
characteristics due to a change in its genetic material.
Mutations occur all the time in all species. It's a natural process.
However, the chances of a mutation creating a mutant capable of better
surviving its environment are vanishingly small. Most do not survive in
nature.
For Mutant, now read Gentically Modified Organism (GMO)
We are creating a world of mutants with absolutely no knowledge of
whether they will have the full spectrum of overall traits necessary for
survival. However, if the Biotech industry gets its way (and recent
recommendations at the EU look like supporting this -see press release
below) we will soon have gm crops as the only option to grow, since other
natural and organically produced crops will have been contaminated by GM
DNA. And we have no idea how they will fare. What we do know, is that
there will be no alternative. (With any level of contamination, it is
not rocket science to foresee a time when all organic life forms will be
contaminated by artificially modified DNA and be, in effect, mutants. To
dismiss a small contamination level now as insignificant is naïve, the
equivalent to describing someone as being "only slightly pregnant").
All life forms on the planet are here because they have evolved over
millennia to be able to survive and thrive in the environment in which
they live. Their genetic makeup is a direct result of their evolution up
to the present time. We are now creating a world of mutants - grossly
unnatural life forms created by inserting genes from unrelated species
into life forms upon which we depend for food and other resources such as
clothing and medicines.
Lets put this into some perspective. After only 70 years (when the
production of natural crops was made illegal and only approved hybrids
were allowed to be traded around the world and particularly in the west,)
the effects of conventional hybridisation and monocropping are now
beginning to be seen: ("Our Food is Dying," The Scientist, March 2006
Volume 20 | Issue 3 | Page 62 ) In this case we could consider the
return to a broader gene base and more crop diversity (and organic
agriculture with proper crop rotation) to be a way to provide practical
solutions. Thanks to the few organisations such as the Henry Doubleday
Research Association, we still have a library of live seeds of thousands
of wild and natural plants currently deemed illegal on the open market.
But once the gene pool is destroyed by GM contamination, there will be no
going back and we run the risk of sowing the seeds of our own
destruction..
We have absolutely no idea of how these new products might behave in the
future, or even if they will survive. Given the frailty of civilisation,
nations and particularly industries, there is no guarantee of continued
support in the future for any problems that might arise. And there will
be no going back - the gene pool will have been lost. We will be left
with a declining base of mutant foodstuffs, which have had no time to
adapt to natural conditions, many of which cannot survive in the wild, or
even in cultivation without massive inputs of resource-heavy artificial
support.
We could just have signed the death warrant of the planet.
GM Freeze PRESS RELEASE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE 10th March 2005
European Commission attempts to force GM contamination blueprint on
reluctant member states
Today's EC Communication [1] on the "coexistence" of GM and non-GM crops
indicates that the Commission is prepared to plough-on with its deeply
unpopular proposals to force EU Member States to adopt measures that
would make GM contamination of crops routine across the whole of the EU.
The EC has rejected half the "coexistence" proposals submitted by EU
Member States to date because they do not fully comply with the
Commissions Recommendation of 2003 [2] which set a 0.9% GM contamination
threshold (identical to the labelling threshold) for growing crops
including organic ones and stated that "measures should not go beyond
what is necessary in order to ensure that adventitious traces of GMOs
stay below the labelling threshold laid down in Regulation (EC) No
1829/2003 and Directive 2001/18/EC in order to avoid any unnecessary
burden for the operators concerned".
To date, the UK has not put forward any "coexistence" proposals but
recent correspondence from Margaret Beckett indicates that they will
largely follow the EC recommendations to the letter. [3]
The EC's recommendations to set a crop threshold based on the same level
of contamination agreed for labelling has been described by a leading QC
as "legally irrelevant". The legal opinion [4] describes the
Recommendations as "fundamentally flawed" and to have "no basis in
Community legislation and are wrong in law". The opinion makes it clear
that coexistence schemes must aim to protect the environment and human
health as well as dealing with economic aspects of contamination of non
GM crops.
The EC approach allows member states to develop their own scheme to
introduce "appropriate measures to avoid the unintended presence of GMOs
in other products". However, some Member States have indicated that the
0.9% is unacceptable and want much lower thresholds and to avoid GM
contamination by setting tough conditions for growing GM crops including
liability.
At yesterday's Council of Ministers meeting the EC's approach and role in
approving GM applications came under attack by several Member States
including the use of their power to force through approvals despite the
lack of a qualified majority in the Council for any GMO application in
the last two years [5].
The demand for GMO free status is also growing fast with 172 regions and
4500 municipalities and local councils calling for the right to prevent
GMO cultivation in their area [6].
Commenting Pete Riley of GM Freeze said:
"Today's EC communication shows that we are dealing with closed minds in
Brussels. Faced with a legal opinion that condemns its approach, massive
political support for zero contamination and the right to set up GM-free
areas, the Commission just ploughs on with its blueprint for
contamination which benefits biotech companies ahead of the European
citizens. To make matters worse it appears to be trying to force through
an EU wide set of rules without giving the European Parliament the chance
to vote on it.
The Commission's approach is designed to allow GM crops to be grown not
to protect the rights of people to grow and buy food free from
contamination.
In most of Europe "coexistence" is an impossible concept and the real
choice lies between GM contamination or not growing GM crops.
Politicians across Europe need to join with consumers and farmers to make
sure the right to GM-free food and crops is not taken away by the GM
dogma which permeates Brussels"
ENDS
Calls to Pete Riley 07903 341 065.
NOTES
1. COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
Report on the implementation of national measures on the coexistence
of genetically modified crops with conventional and organic farming
{SEC (2006) 313}
Copy available on request
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