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Food Sovereignty, a European answer to the crisis!

 

Krems – Austria – 22nd August 2011

After  5  days  of  intense,  inspired  and  constructive  exchange,  the  Nyeleni  Europe  2011,  European Forum for Food Sovereignty, closed yesterday. The Forum adopted the first European Declaration on Food Sovereignty. 

Over 400 delegates from European countries committed to strengthening their collective capacity to reclaiming  community  control  over  food  system,  to  resisting  the  agro-industrial  system  and  to expanding and consolidating a strong European movement for Food Sovereignty.  

Over 120 organisations  and  individuals,  representing  civil  society  and  social movements, discussed the  impact  of  current  European  and  global  policies.  Together they  developed  a  comprehensive platform and a set of principles  to achieve  food sovereignty  in Europe. The Forum emphasized  the contribution  of  voices  of  young  people,  woman  and  food  producers,  whose  concerns  are  often overlooked.    This diversity  and  richness of experience enabled  the Nyeleni Europe 2011  Forum  to identify  a  common  framework,  and  to  define  a  joint  action  plan  based  on  a  democratic  and participatory process. 

The Declaration proclaims, “we are convinced that a change to our food system is a first step towards a broader change in our societies”.  The Forum delegates strongly committed to taking the food system into their own hands by:

-  Working towards an ecologically sustainable and socially just model of food production and consumption based on non-industrial smallholder farming, processing and alternative distribution.

-  Decentralizing the food distribution system and shortening the chain between producers and consumers.

-  Improving working and social conditions, particularly in field of food and agriculture?

-  Democratizing decision-making on the use of the Commons and heritage (land, water, air, traditional knowledge, seeds and livestock).

-  Ensuring that public policies at all levels guarantee the vitality of rural areas, fair prices for food producers and safe, GMO-free food for all.

At this time of political volatility, social and economic crisis, the delegates of the Nyeleni Forum for Food Sovereignty reaffirmed their vision of unity that emphasized the right of all peoples to define their  own  food  and  agriculture  policies  and  systems,  without  harming  either  people  or  precious natural resources, as Food Sovereignty implies.

That’s why we demand food sovereignty in Europe now. 

 

 

 Press release  (pdf) /    Final Declaration (full text)

No patents on seeds!

 

 

The No Patents on Seeds coalition was initiated by the Berne Declaration, Greenpeace, Misereor, No Patents on Life, Swissaid and the Norwegian Development Fund. It campaigns for a clear regulation in patent law.

This initiative is supported globally by over 300 NGOs and farmers’ organisations and has collected about 100.000 signatures against patents on plants and animals.

These patents create new dependencies for farmers, breeders, food producers and consumers. These patents have to be regarded as misappropriation of basic resources in farm and food production and as general abuse of patent law. It is necessary an urgent re-think of European patent law in biotechnology and plant breeding and to support clear regulations that exclude from patentability processes for breeding, genetic material, plants and animals and food derived thereof.

Help this cause by  signing the open letter to Members of the European Parliament and the European Commissi on.

For more information on this campaign:  No Patents on Seeds

GMO FREE EUROPE 2010, BRUSSELS

 

 

GMO Free Europe 2010, Brussels, 16-18 September 2010

300 representatives from 37 countries, representing formal and informal GMO-free regions, GMO-free initiatives and activists on related issues from all over Europe. Breeders and seed exchangers, farmers, bee-keepers, gmo-free traders, processors and retailers as well as consumers, critical scientists and environmental activists have met in Brussels and Ghent from 16 to 18 September 2010.
The participants critically discussed the new GMO policy of the European Union, which was presented to them by EU Commissioner John Dalli. They welcomed the announcement of the environment minister of the Region of Brussels, that the government of the Capital of Europe has just declared itself GMO Free. The agricultural minister of Wallonia, vize-chairmen of the European Parliaments Agricultural Committee, José Bové and Janusz Wojciechowski, presidents and representatives of major farmers unions, from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, Euro-Coop and IFOAM expressed their solidarity with the GMO Free movement. The secretary general of Carrefour and representatives of the German EDEKA and tegut supermarket chains confirmed their commitment to stay GMO free and to build a reliable supply chain of non-GMO animal feed for their milk, meat and egg products. This was especially welcomed by the secretary general of the association of Brasilian GMO Free soybean producers, ABRANGE.
In the evening the conference was welcomed by the vice-major and echevin for the environment, Bertin Mampaka, in the historic City Hall of Brussels at the Grande Place.
Shocking news came from Professor Andres Carrasco, Argentina's leading embryologist, who presented newly published scientific evidence that Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the worlds best selling weedkiller "Roundup", to which about 75% of all GMOs of the world are resistant, cause serious embryonic damage.
For two days the participants then retreated to exchange information and discuss joint strategies for a GMO free Europe. 30 workshops covered a diversity of issues while the final plenary agreed to fight for a moratorium of any releases of GMOs into the environment, to both expand GMO Free Regions at national level and to demand a serious overhaul of the risk assessment procedure at European level. 

For more information, visit the conference's  website.

GENET-news of today

2012-01-26

Crop science and crop fiction - GE crops in the EU

Last week’s decision by BASF to pull its plant science unit out of Europe and move it to the United States, citing hostility to genetically modified (GM) crops from consumers and politicians, has sent a shiver down the spine of Europe’s biotechnology industry. “In the last week we’ve gotten calls from lots of industry groups who are very worried about the message this sends on innovation and science,” says Carel du Marchie Sarvaas, a director with biotechnology industry association EuropaBio. “A quintes-sential European research base is leaving Europe because the political environment is so negative. That means less science in Europe, less innovation, less jobs and less growth.”

2012-01-26

UK needs scientific research into agroecology not GE crops

The Financial Times reporting on the BASF decision to relocate its GM research to the USA quoted a senior researcher in biosciences, Professor Jonathan Jones from the Sainsbury Lab in Norwich as saying: ‘The psychological damage is that it will tell the next young people who might want to go into plant science that they can’t bring anything exciting to market... and it also discourages government support if [GM technology] is not going to be deployed in Europe.’ [...] But ‘psychological damage of young people’? [...] there can be no greater scientific challenge in the food system than how to shift it towards a more ecological and healthier form of production and consumption that can be controlled locally.

2012-01-26

Genetically engineered crops will not feed the world

“The biotech industry has exploited the image of the world’s poor and hungry to advance a form of agriculture that is expensive, input-intensive, and of little or no relevance to developing country farmers,” said Andrew Kimbrell Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety. “It’s long past time that the Gates Foundation redirect its investments in biotech companies like Monsanto, and its funding of dead-end GE crop projects, to promote agroecological techniques with a proven record of increasing food production in developing countries.”

2012-01-26

Gates and Monsanto defend focus on high-tech agriculture and GE crops to fight starvation and malnutrition

Bill Gates has a terse response to criticism that the high-tech solutions he advocates for world hunger are too expensive or bad for the environment: Countries can embrace modern seed technology and genetic modification or their citizens will starve. [...] He told The Associated Press that he finds it ironic that most people who oppose genetic engineering in plant breeding live in rich nations that he believes are responsible for global climate change that will lead to more starvation and malnutrition for the poor.

2012-01-26

Monsanto shareholders vote down proposed study on GE crop risks

Shareholders of Monsanto Co. on Tuesday voted down a proposed study of how the company’s genetically engineered crops, or GMOs, may pose financial and legal risks to the seed giant. [...] Napa, Calif.-based Harrington Investments had put up for shareholder vote a request to study “material financial risks or operational impacts” of the chemicals and genetically modified crops that Monsanto sells.

2012-01-26

Monsanto says won’t sell GMO maize in France in 2012

U.S. biotech firm Monsanto said on Tuesday it does not plan to sell its genetically modified maize MON810 in France this year, nor after, even though the country’s highest court overturned a 3-year ban in November. “Monsanto considers that favorable conditions for the sale of the MON810 in France in 2012 and beyond are not in place,” the company said in a statement, adding that it had told the French authorities about its intentions.

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