INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME
Note: Michaels's original speech was ommited because of the late arrival of some panel speakers.
Good morning everyone! Thank you for coming. As you know, there has been very little discussion in the Irish media about the whole issue of genetically modified food and crops - unlike most other countries in Europe where it's a mainstream issue. In the UK, for example, it's all over the papers, there have been public consultation processes, national debates, and a lot of controversy and a lot of organising by citizens, farmers and food companies. But in Ireland, ther is almost complete silence.
I'm somebody who eats food three times a day, and who comes from a background in sustainable development. It seems to me that this is an issue that we need to think about and have more discussion about, particularly since our government is playing a leading EU political role in promoting the legalisation of genetically modified food and crops throughout the EU. So what I'm hoping will happen today is that we will have a series of short ten-minute presentations from our eminent panel, break for a quarter of an hour around 10.30, then go through the rest of the panel. At 13.00 there will be a panel discussion with the audience, and then a break for a light lunch. I hope most of you will stay after lunch, because we hope to have an open discussion about what you think we can do in Ireland, what the different stakeholders can do - including the farming organisations, food industry, consumers, various government departments, religious organisations - to get our act together and think through the positions that would best represent our collective interest in preparation for a larger conference (orginally planned for today but that we postponed because of the postal strike) on the weekend of 19-20 June.
This follow-up conference will feature keynote speeches by Michael Meacher,the former UK Environment Minister, and Rémi Parmentier, a top international lawyer and former Political Director of Greenpeace International, together with policy briefings by a line-up of European experts in related science, business, farming, environment, safe food, EU regulations and international law - including the Biosafety Protocol which recognises Ireland's legal right to declare this country GM free if we want to.
I will now introduce the rest of our panel. Ruaidhri Deasy is Deputy President of the Irish Farmers Association; he and I were at school together many years ago and it's very good to see him here. Bridget Carlin is the Spokesperson of the Irish Seed Savers Association, which is very concerned about the impact of GM on the biodiversity of Ireland's agricultural seeds. Chris Samra-Tibbetts and her colleague Tom Latter have just arrived from Wales; we are delighted that they have come; Chris is the spokesperson for GM-free Cymru - the network of farmers, environmentalists and politicians in Wales who have succeeded in declaring their whole country off limits to GM. Tom Latter is an organic farmer who is also very involved in the GM-free Cymru network. Mike Barry is the Sustainable Development Manager at Marks & Spencer in the UK; he will tell us why that company decided to ban genetically modified ingredients from its entire range of food products; they have also gone one step further. I was surprised to find out that we in Ireland have all been eating GM food without realising it for years, because it's coming in through the animal feed. Most of the beef, lamb, pork, poultry, eggs, milk and dairy products sold in Ireland comes from animals who have been fed a diet of GM animal feed. Marks & Spencer in the UK is providing fresh milk and meat guaranteed to come from animals that have not been fee a GM diet. Mext in line we have Adrian Bebb; Adrian is a co-ordinator of GM issues with Friends of the Earth Europe; I met him at a wonderful conference organised by the European NGO Network on Genetic Engineering in Vienna, and he will share a lot of information with us about the GM-free zones that are now being set up all over Europe. Then we have Evan Doyle, the co-owner of the Brook Lodge Hotel in Macreddin, Co. Wicklow, who is speaking on behalf of Euro-Toques Ireland / The European Commission of Chefs. And finally, we have Pavitra Chalam, a young journalist from Bangalore, India, who is the spokesperson for the GM-free India movement and an intern with Global Vision.
Because of our late start, I'm going to end now, since you can find the gist of my original speech on the back of the programme which you received when you registered today. We have a lot of information on the GM-free Ireland web site. And we invite interested organisation to join the GM-free Ireland Network which you can do online there. The only requirement to join is that your organisation would like Ireland to conserve its GM-free status.
So without further ado, please welcome Ruaidhri Deasy from the Irish Farmers Association.
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