ON Monday October 13 I joined the Friends of the Earth and GM protesters march and rally in central London and witnessed the extraordinary sight of our former Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, applauding a Devon activist for destroying a GM crop.
There were a thousand of us; some cycled all the way from Scotland, Land's End and other vast distances. There were five tractors, one farmer having driven from Wales. For every one of us who made this difficult journey to get to London on a workday by 10.30am there were dozens who couldn't. Reports of the march were on Monday's television news and in Tuesday's papers.
All the scientific evidence now being presented is reinforcing the case that we have been making for the last five years against the growing of GM crops. Our case has always been based on the scientific facts that were already known then and are now only just being confirmed outside of closed doors. These facts include the unreliability of GM crops, where crop failures have resulted in the impoverishment of Indian and other third world farmers.
In the 1999 GM Parish Referendum, 487 people agreed that GM crops should not be grown in the Tavistock area. On July 8 this year we held a 'GM Nation' public debate which was attended by over 80 people and not one person present voted in favour of growing GM crops.
There has now been a major U-turn by the European Commission after Franz Fischler's decision earlier this year, and farmers, businesses and councils are now allowed to declare themselves to be a GM-free zone.
More than 30 local councils, including Cornwall, as well as the Welsh Assembly and the Lake District National Park Authority, have declared themselves GM-free and I would now, once again, request Tavistock Town Council and West Devon Borough Council to reconsider their respective positions on this hugely important issue and declare themselves to be GM-free.
Jackie Eady (A member of Tavistock
Genetics Group)
12 Glanville Road, Tavistock