|
The GM-free Ireland Network has written to our international network of scientific advisers to help identify potential flaws in the design of this experiment and to recommend reasons for the EPA to refuse consent.
You can download our submission to the EPA here.
We regard Teagasc's proposed experimental cultivation of GMO potatoes in Irish fields as unethical, highly irreponsible, and unacceptable. We have urged the EPA to refuse consent for the following reasons:
1. | |
It would damage our national economy by destroying Ireland's status as a GMO-free crop zone;
|
2. | |
It threatens biodiversity and risks contaminating Irish potatoes in perpetuity;
|
3. | |
It requires the use of glyphosate which is linked to birth defects and cancer;
|
4. | |
The Teagasc document contains scientific mistakes and is also incomplete;
|
5. | |
It is clearly designed as a PR exercise to manufacture consent for GM food and farming;
|
6. | |
Teagasc disseminates industry propaganda and repeatedly denies scientific evidence on GM crops;
|
7. | |
Teagasc admits the related GM patents could be sold or licensed to corporations such as Monsanto;
|
8. | |
This un-needed experiment is a waste of Irish and EU taxpayer's money.
|
|
Watch this page for related news and developments in the days and weeks ahead.
Destroying our reputation as Ireland – the food island
If the EPA allows Teagasc to go ahead with this experiment, these taxpayer funded government agencies will immediately terminate Ireland's reputation for safe food and our status as a GMO-free crop zone, which provides great untapped potential for Irish farmers, food producers and tourism operators to secure an econonomically valuable and completely unique selling point: the most credible GMO-free food brand in Europe. For more on this subject see:
|
| • | |
GM-free Irish label good for business: Added value, increased market share, better branding and unique selling point: the most credible GM-free food brand in Europe. GM-free Ireland Network press release, 17 November 2009.
|
| • | |
GM-free production: a unique selling point for Ireland - the food island. 47-page briefing with GM-free market survey, 17 Nov. 2009 (1.2MB pdf).
|
| • | |
Video: GM-free food production: a unique selling point for Ireland - the food island 17 November 2009 press conference on the business case for Ireland's GM-free label, with Richard Corrigan (Michelin star chef and TV host), Darina Allen (Slow Food Ireland, Good Food Ireland, Free Choice Consumer Group, Artisan Food Forum, and the Farmers Market movement), Malcolm Thompson (Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association), Evan Doyle (the Taste Council, Organic Trust and Euro-Toques Ireland), Dr. John Fagan (Cert ID), and Michael O'Callaghan (GM-free Ireland).
|
| • | |
Designating Ireland as a GMO-free Biosafety Reserve for Europe: presentation to Food & Democracy - the 5th European Conference on GMO-free Regions in April 2009.
|
|
Please sign our petition to stop GMO potato trials in Ireland
You can make a difference
Back in 2006, when the world's largest chemicals company, BASF applied for consent to release GMO potatoes in County Meath, the GM-free Ireland Network organised protests and submissions which led BASF to abandon its plans.
Under EU law (sub-article 16(1) of S.I. No. 500 of 2003), concerned stakeholders can make submissions requesting the EPA to require conditions and/or refuse consent for this experiment. Submissions must be accompanied by a cheque or money order for €10 (ten euro) made out to the EPA, and sent to this address before the deadline of 5pm on 27 March
(see note from EPA).
|
|
EPA Headquarters
PO Box 3000, Johnstown Castle Estate, Co. Wexford, Ireland
Tel +353 (0)53 916 0600
info@epa.ie
www.epa.ie
Lo Call: 1890 4335 599
|
|
Please contact Michael O'Callaghan at this address to co-ordinate your input with other stakeholders, and send him a copy of your EPA submission so we can publish it on this page.
Unacceptable location
The location of the proposed open air experiment is the Teagasc facility at Oak Park (see maps), just North of Carlow town. The site is inappropriate because:
|
| • | |
It is surrounded by conventional and organic farms which do not want to be contaminated by GM crops, which would then be difficult if not impossible to sell as they would have to carry a GM food label.
|
| • | |
It lies on the bank of the Barrow river (Ireland's second longest at 193 km) – a favoured tourist destination for fishing (brown trout, salmon, bream, tench, rudd and pike) which could be contaminated by DNA from the GM potatoes and/or from the associated toxic herbicide which Teagasc plans to use as part of the field trials.
|
| • | |
Teagasc's notification to the EPA admits it intends to spray the test site with Monsanto's highly toxic herbicide Roundup to remove unwanted leftover GM potatoes. Roundup (and its main active ingredient glyphosate) cause total human cell death within 24 hours at very low levels, and are scientifically linked to birth defects, spontaneous abortions, placental damage, embryo damage, endocrine disruption, cancer, non-hodgkin's lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and other diseases. Roundup is also lethal to amphibians and causes DNA damage in cells. For more info, see page 2 of the summary of the Health Effects of Glyphosate scientific report published by the GLS Bank in Germany.
|
| • | |
The inevitable runoff of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide from Oak Park to the adjacent river Barrow (a few meters away) would contaminate and jeopardise the health of the inhabitants of Carlow town, along with the Barrow's entire watercourse and its tributaries, its fish, and anyone who consumes them as for as the Irish Sea.
|
| • | |
The site is only a few hundred meters from the border of County Kildare, a GMO-free zone whose County Council unanimously declared its jurisdiction off-limits to GM crops in a 2006 Motion stating "that this County Council takes all possible measures necessary to promote and maintain Kildare as a genetically modified crop-free zone, in order to protect the interests of farmers and to encourage development of our valuable agricultural industry". (See 2006 press release).
The experiment also risks contaminating potatoes in County Meath and County Westmeath, both of which have also declared themselves as GMO-free crop zones.
|
| • | |
Oak Park is only 30 km from the Wicklow Mountains National Park, and is close to numerous designated ecological sites including Nature Reserves, SACs (Special Areas of Conservation for wildlife habitats under EC law), SPAs (Special Protected Areas for birds under EC law), Natural Heritage Areas, Refuges for Flora, Refuges for Fauna, and Natura 2000 sites (Atlantic Bioregeographical region Sites of Community Importance listed in 2004/813/EC) which must not be contaminated by GMOs of any kind.
|
| • | |
Ireland's prevailing Atlantic winds blow from the West and North-West, and frequently reach gale force. If these winds were to carry GMO potato pollen from the field trials the relatively short distance across the Irish sea, they could easily contaminate many of the 40 English counties which have declared themselves as GMO-free crop zones, along with Scotland and Wales which strongly oppose the introduction of GMO crops. Further afield, the experiment could contaminate farmers in France, Luxembourg, Holland and Germany, causing expensive product recalls and contamination lawsuits. Unless Teagasc has secured liability insurance, Irish taxpayers would have to foot the bill for any contamination in Ireland and overseas.
|
|
What's the purpose?
According to Teagasc, the official goal of the experiment is "Assessing and monitoring the impact on the agri-environment of genetically modified potatoes with resistance to Phytophthora infestans, causative organism of late blight disease (2012 - 2016)".
However, Teagasc has informed us of its plan, as part of this experiment, to "also conduct an outreach programme with stakeholders and the public", and to "provide a forum for people to participate in a discussion of the most relevant issues, while explaining what is involved in completing the work and why we are doing it now."
One of the strategic partners in this AMIGA project is Minerva Consulting and Communications (formerly known as AID Marketing & Communication), a PR company whose client list includes many transnational corporations in Brussels. We hope to find out if these clients include agri-biotech companies or lobby groups. (Please inform us if you know!)
We would therefore not be surprised if this "outreach" programme turns out to be sheer propaganda.
Can Teagasc really be trusted to tell the truth about GMOs?
We have no reason to doubt the integrity of the honest Teagasc scientists involved in this project. But although Teagasc is widely acknowledged to do excellent work in many other areas of agriculture, we feel obliged to state that we consider the institution's scientific credibility on the subject of GMOs to be near zero, based on its continued demonstrable track record of related disinformation and lies. Teagasc has spent millions of Irish taxpayer funds on research and development of GM crops, co-funding a Canadian GM industry propaganda conference in 2008, and maintaining a website whose content is worthy of Monsanto's spin doctors. Some members of Teagasc upper management continue to deny the scientific evidence of harm caused by cultivation of GM crops around the world.
|
| • | |
The Director of Teagasc, Prof Gerry Boyle, is or has recently been an agricultural consultant to the World Bank, which uses public tax-payer funding from the rich countries to promote GM farming in the developing countries. Boyle makes the astounding claim that the record of GM crops internationally has been "very good" – completely denying the scientific evidence of health dangers, reduced yields, GM superweeds, crop failures, widespread contamination, patent infringement lawsuits, product recalls, billion-dollar food industry losses, EU market rejection and loss of biodiversity.
|
| • | |
Teagasc's former director of crop research, Prof Jimmy Burke (now at University College Dublin) told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food that "the record of GMOs to date has been very good", and has also described the introduction of GM maize in Spain as a "great success", despite the widespread contamination of conventional and organic farmers in that country, which was meticulously documented by Greenpeace and local NGOs in their 2006 report Impossible Coexistence Seven years of GMOs have contaminated organic and conventional maize: an examination of the cases of Catalonia and Aragon.
|
| • | |
Teagasc was the subject of international scandal for hosting a controversial conference promoting GM seeds and crops at University College Cork in 2008, on behalf of a Canadian biotech industry front group called the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference (ABIC) Foundation, managed by Ag-West Bio Inc. and funded by Monsanto. ABIC's Board of Directors includes Jimmy Burke (Teagasc's head of Biotechnology), the conference chair Ashley O'Sullivan (a former Monsanto employee), Roger Kemble (President of Syngenta Biotechnology Inc), and Malcolm Devine (former employee of Aventis CropScience and Bayer CropScience). (Related press release)
|
| • | |
Teagasc's so-called Information Centre for Genetically Modified Crops in Ireland website at www.gmoinfo.ie reads like a Monsanto press release. The last time we checked, the greenwash failed to mention that GM crops have contaminated conventional and organic varieties (and entire food supply chains) around the world, and that contaminated farmers lose ownership of their seeds and crops under the WTO's international patent laws. The Centre's website also fails to mention the scientific evidence of health and environmental impacts, and the economic risks involved. This is a blatant example of self-serving agribiotech industry hype being touted at Irish taxpayers' expense.
|
| • | |
In 2009, Teagasc published a study entitled The GM debate and the Irish pig meat sector. Peadar Lawlor and Maria Walsh explore the viability of the Irish pig industry in the presence of a GM feed ban, which falsely claimed that using Non-GMO animal feed would wipe out Ireland's pig farming sector. See our detailed critique.
|
| • | |
The absurdity of Teagasc's claim that GM crops can be kept separate from (and safely "co-exist") with conventional and organic crops was made clear when the Irish Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (DAFF) – which then operated under a policy to ban field trials and cultivation of GM crops) – was accidentally conducting field trials with an illegal variety of GM maize at the National Crop Variety Testing Centre at Backweston in Co. Kildare, and at three other undisclosed locations in Counties Kildare, Kilkenny, and Cork. It is unclear how much, if any, of the illegal GM maize seeds were sold and cultivated by Irish farmers. See Unauthorised release of GM event NK603 in conventional maize seed, EPA press release, 22 June
2010 and Illegal GM maize grown in Ireland, GM-free Ireland press release, 23 July 2010.
|
Why should you object to this GM food experiment?
|
| • | |
There is no market for GM-labelled food in Europe. Wasting public money on GM crop research is unacceptable, especially when blight-resistant varieties of potatoes are already being developed through Non-GM traditional breeding methods, at a time when traditional agriculture is under attack from market forces.
|
| • | |
If the EPA provides consent, this field trial would effectively terminate Ireland's status as a GMO-free crop zone, which provides great untapped potential for Irish farmers, food producers and tourism operators to secure an econonomically valuable and completely unique selling point: the most credible GMO-free food label in Europe.
|
| • | |
As part of its experiment, Teagasc intends to "also conduct an outreach programme with stakeholders and the public", and "provide a forum for people to participate in a discussion of the most relevant issues, while explaining what is involved in completing the work and why we are doing it now." Teagasc has a track record of disseminating unscientific propaganda about GMOs.
|
| • | |
Teagasc PR emphasises that the AMIGA project is funded under the EU Framework 7 programme and "is not supported by industry." It intends to highlight the public funding of this research to diffuse arguments about the privatisation of agriculture via GMO crop patents, while at the same time hoping to make farmers trust GM crops.
|
|
The GM-free Ireland Network has written to our international network of scientific advisers for information about potential flaws in the design of this experiment and reasons for the EPA to refuse consent. Watch this page for related news and developments in the days and weeks ahead.
Related Teagasc documents:
Undated letter from Teagasc to Michael O'Callaghan (co-ordinator of the GM-free Ireland Network sent on 27 February 2012, inviting comment from stakeholders. The deadline for submissions is 26 March 2012.
Teagasc applying to field test GM potatoes as part of EU Research Study
Teagasc announcement, 27 February 2012.
Assessing and monitoring the impact on the agri-environment of genetically modified potatoes with resistance to Phytophthora infestans, causative organism of late blight disease (2012 2016). Teagasc notification to the EPA, February 2012. Includes scientific details of the proposed experiment.
Public notice published by Teagasc on 27 February 2012.
Related public comments and media coverage (most recent at the top):
|
| • | |
GM-Free Ireland Network submission to the EPA, 27 March 2012.
|
| • | |
Joint call to stop Teagasc doing GM potato trials
Frank McDonald, Environmental Editor, the Irish Times, 26 March 2012
|
| • | |
Use the C-word all you want: they're still GM potatoes
Stella Coffey, the Irish Times, 26 March 2012
|
| • | |
GM potatoes, to be or not to be?
Thomas O'Connor, letter to the editor, Irish Farmers Journal, dated 10 March, published 8 March 2012.
|
| • | |
Irresponsible move by Teagasc threatens Irish Food Industry
www.no2gm.com press release, 4 March 2012.
|
| • | |
Urgent Need for Education On Threat of GMOs
Irish News Review, 2 March 2012.
|
| • | |
GM trials will destroy our green agriculture image
Green Party press release, 29 February 2012.
|
| • | |
GM plant trials to be held by Teagasc
Irish Times, 28 February 2012.
|
| • | |
GM potato trials could be held in Carlow
The Journal.ie, 28 February 2012.
|
|
Related stakeholder submissions to the EPA will be published here:
Background
No GM crops have ever been grown commercially on the island of Ireland. The only previous field trial (of GMO sugar beets) was successfully interrupted by activists in 1998. And in 2006, the GM-free Ireland Network prevented the world's biggest chemicals company, BASF, from conducting a field trial GMO potatoes in County Meath (see details here).
In 2009 - after seven years of lobbying by the GM-free Ireland Network - the Fianna Fáil / Green Party coalition Government adopted a policy which promised to "Declare the Republic of Ireland a GM-Free Zone, free from the cultivation of all GM plants", and stated "To optimise Ireland's competitive advantage as a GM-Free country, we will introduce a voluntary GM-Free logo for use in all relevant product labelling and advertising, similar to a scheme recently introduced in Germany." However, the government failed to implement the policy with any legislation before losing the election in 2011.
Ireland's current Fine Gael / Labour government obviously favours the introduction of GM crops. If the EPA gives consent for Teagasc to conduct this field trial of GMO potatoes, it will destroy Ireland's status as a GMO-free crop zone and seriously damage its reputation as Ireland –the food island. For more on this, download GM-free production: a unique selling point for Ireland – the food island (47-page briefing with GM-free market survey, 17 Nov. 2009).
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
