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GM Food GMO: what are the Dangers? (12/03/1999
WTO: Millennium Round (12/02/1999)
Here's the test that finds even minimum quantities of GM components in foods. (11/06/1999)
FAO,
genetically modified foods and Europe: superficiality,
Japanese labels on GM foods
restrain
In Australia a government agency will control research and diffusion of genetically modified organism (09/19/1999)
Marks&Spencer in UK starts selling meat of animals fed with no genetically modified soy or corn (08/31/1999)
A new centre will fight for biodiversity (07/12/1999)
Ireland, the potato famine: a handbook case (07/02/1999)
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The economist
Jeremy Rifkin: Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends based in Washington, speaking in Verona at the last Agricultural Fair, has alerted the public about the scary concentration of power connected to the spread of biotechnologies, when there isn't adequate information. "When speaking of biotechnology, agricultural entrepeneurs, politicians, governments and intellectuals must start from a consideration: those who control genetic engineering also control the industry of the next millennium. Some examples: genetically modified plants capable of producing plastic or vaccines are under study. Not to talk about manipulated foods, animal feed, medical applications. But few people know that companies and multinational corporations operating in this field have encountered an exasperated process of concentration, with the birth of world giants such as Monsanto, Dupont, Novartis. These companies are patenting their genetic discoveries. And are therefore capable of influencing the evolution of entire economies." ..."The Monsanto company now doesn't grant
the property of seeds for cultivations, which in the past were sold to farmers. They are
now leased out: in practice, their use is allowed, but farmers can't do what they want
with them. The company sends their own inspectors to verify that the farmer doesn't resell
the seeds to others. And they publish pages on papers to be payed by those who transgress
their rules. A gene has been invented, called 'terminator', which prevents farmers from
freely disposing of seeds, by killing them (...) the risks of genetic pollution of the
environment are very high, so much that the big companies don't give insurance to
multinational groups against the risks of environmental catastrophe. (...) It has even
been proven that genes "jump" from an organism to the other, with serious risks
for human beings". Implications This means that every year the farmer must buy the seeds again since the plants of the previous year are sterile, they don't produce seeds. By using these seeds there is no possibility of having the seeds themselves from the farmer's own harvest or from the neighbour's: farmers are forced to buy them without being able to choose the supplier. The price is therefore practically imposed. Biodiversity disappears with all the serious implications which follow. Man runs the risk of genetic mutations whose consequences are not predictable.
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