Ireland on Brink of Losing GM Free Status

beatsie

Hey everyone,i just want to make anyone that might care aware of a potentially very damaging development.

Here's the letter myself and my girlfriend are sending to some TD's, Senators and MEPS

We wish to draw your attention to a serious and urgent development. It has come to our attention recently that there has been recent approval at EU level for the importation of live Genetically Engineered oilseed rape. It will be in the form of viable seed, capable of growing and cross-pollinating with other members of the Brassica family. The following information was received from the Irish Seed Savers Association:

On Wednesday 7th September 2005, EU commissioners approved Monsanto's GT73 oilseed rape for use as animal feed in Europe. Despite opposition from 13 member states and support from only 6 the legislation was passed because a Qualified Majority vote had not been reached. Due to six member states, including Ireland, abstaining from the vote the decision was left to the unelected EU commissioners.

If immediate action is not taken GT73 could arrive in Ireland before the end of October 2005. This is an emergency situation as the GT73 oilseed rape is live and viable seed. Although intended as animal feed, there will inevitably be spillages at the ports, en route to storage depots and at the destination farms. Those spilled seeds will germinate and grow and are capable of cross pollinating with other members of the Brassica family (cabbage, kale, turnips etc.) both wild and cultivated, resulting in Ireland losing its commercially advantageous GM free status.

In Ireland we already have the advantages of being (a) geographically isolated and surrounded by water; (b) less prone to GM pollen contamination due to the prevailing wind direction; (c) the country with the lowest exposure to GM material of all the EU member states. Therefore, retaining our GM free status would offer distinct environmental and economic advantages for Ireland.

We urge you to take action by calling for the implementation of the'Safeguard Clause' Directive 2001/18/EC and complying with the spirit of the decisions taken on 15th June 2005 by the Joint Oireachtas Committees on European Affairs and on Environment/Local Government which both gave unanimous, cross party support for the sovereign right of member states to ban specific GM products when there are questions over their safety. Please raise this issue immediately with your colleagues in the Dáil and commit yourself to preventing the importation of GM seeds, which do not serve the interests of Irish consumers, farmers or environmentalists.

If you feel so inclined you can use that letter as a template and send it to your local elected officials.

I have started an online petition for those that do not want to send letters

http://new.petitiononline.com/ngm1027/petition.html

I also ask you to pass this information on to as many people as possible,

OfflerCrocGod

What's wrong with GM the yanks have been using it for many years. Let the market decide.

atilladehun

a good few things.
Trust is one of the biggest problems. giving GM to a beast has to cese a ceertain time before the animal is killed, if this is not done then it may affect the humans who eat it. Its hard to trace the date for some things.
The people who provide the chemicals used are of a pharmacist mindset. there is always something new on the market but rarely are the long term tests sufficiant enough for one to be garunteed safety.
GM meats are about quantity, not quality. MAke the beast weigh as heavy as possible to get the best price. I'll get back to this................

Capt'n Midnight

One of the uses of GM so far has been to increase pesticide resistance.

The only use for that is so they can sell more pesticide. If anyone knows of another valid reason for plants that are resisitant to pesticide please let me know.

emaherx

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

One of the uses of GM so far has been to increase pesticide resistance.

The only use for that is so they can sell more pesticide. If anyone knows of another valid reason for plants that are resisitant to pesticide please let me know.

how can a plant be resistant to pesticides?
pesticides kill "pests" which attack plants

i belive the use of gm is to increase the resistance to pests therefor requiring less pesticides

Capt'n Midnight

emaherx wrote:

how can a plant be resistant to pesticides?
pesticides kill "pests" which attack plants

too much pesticide kills plants, and wildlife and humans too.

emaherx wrote:

i belive the use of gm is to increase the resistance to pests therefor requiring less pesticides

Nope it's so you can use higher doses without damaging the crop.

Google monsanto gm "pesticide resistance"

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SDILA.php

By creating crops resistant to its herbicides, a biotech company can expand the market for its patented chemicals. The market value of herbicide-tolerant crops was $75 million in 1995; by 2000, it was approximately $805 million, more than 10-fold increase. Globally, in 2002, herbicide-tolerant soybean occupied 36.5 million hectares making it by far the number one GM crop in terms of area [1]. Glyphosate is cheaper than other herbicides, and although it reduces the use of other herbicides, companies sell altogether much more herbicide (especially glyphosate) than before. The continuous use of herbicides and especially of glyphosate (or Roundup, Monsanto’s formulation) with herbicide-tolerant crops, can lead to serious ecological problems.

It has been well documented that when a single herbicide is used repeatedly on a crop, the chances of herbicide-resistance developing in weed populations greatly increases. About 216 cases of pesticide resistance have been reported in one or more herbicide chemical families [8]

Given industry pressures to increase herbicide sales, the acreage treated with broad-spectrum herbicides will expand, exacerbating the resistance problem. The increased use of glyphosphate will result in weed resistance, even if more slowly.

The production of herbicide resistant soybean leads to environmental problems such as deforestation, soil degradation, pesticide and genetic contamination, as well as socio-economic problems such as severe concentration of land and income, expulsion of rural populations to the Amazonian frontier and to urban areas, compounding the concentration of the poor in cities. Soybean expansion also diverts government funds otherwise usable in education, health, and alternative, far more sustainable agroecological methods.

Mucco

There's one protein that they GM into crops that insects don't like, so the amount of pesticide can be reduced.
I think you're referring to glyphosate resistance. This means a spray of glyphosate kills the weeds, not the crops. Less glyphosate is needed and higher yields are obtained. (Edit: sorry, didn't read those snippets above until just now, not sure how reliable they are, though I have no references to hand)

M

samb

Like any new knowledge genetic modification can be used for great good and for great harm. We must be careful but not irrational. In developing countries in particular GM crops have great possibilities for reducing malnutrition. In India they have added Iron to rice.
We must be very careful that companies like monsanto do not exploit people with this technology but that does not mean we should condem the technology.
One point that is very important with regard this issue is this...The potential threat GM crops pose is to biodiversity not human health.

Capt'n Midnight

samb wrote:

Like any new knowledge genetic modification can be used for great good and for great harm. We must be careful but not irrational. In developing countries in particular GM crops have great possibilities for reducing malnutrition. In India they have added Iron to rice.
We must be very careful that companies like monsanto do not exploit people with this technology but that does not mean we should condem the technology.
One point that is very important with regard this issue is this...The potential threat GM crops pose is to biodiversity not human health.

Sorry,
but the best predictor for the future is the past.
And in the past almost every new technology has been abused badly.
And explotation is the name of the game, especially if you can corner a monopoly and the regieme doesn't act ( US laws dating back to 1890 , can't think of a major usage since Bell was split up )

A classic example is irridation. In and of itself it's an excellent technology which alters food less than cooking it. It's been used to kill bacteria on food that has already failed health tests so they could pass later.
Patenting of GM is a lock in mechanism by ungenerous big business.
Monsato make a lot of money selling chemicals - think of GM as a side line or foot in the door - a bit like IE is used by microsoft.
Adding Iron to rice - woopie - here by law vitamines have to be added to cereals because of their low nutritional level - in India people have sold Iodinised salt without Iodine in it - they will just sell ordinary grain as enriched stuff . At present things like Corn and Sugar are subsidiesd artifically instead of growing more nutritional crops.