I brought the item to the Board for several reasons: This is an important issue made difficult by a lack of reliable data and the absence of a serious and informed discussion. I felt that the Board, myself included, could benefit from education on this complicated, technical and controversial issue which is being raised in Santa Cruz County, as well as other parts of the state and nation.
Secondly Read more
Congratulations are due for a successful campaign in Ireland that led to the withdrawal of BASF's proposed trials of GM potatoes.
The potatoes have been engineered to be resistant to blight. But according to a poll by the Irish Times, 72% of the public are against the growing of GM crops in Ireland. A nationwide opposition campaign involving more than 100 food and farming groups, expressed their resistance both in the media and in written objections to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the application for approval of the GM Read more
Now, however, American consumers may have to reflect upon their complacency. This week, the Center for Food Safety filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration to force the government to establish mandatory reviews Read more
406 Main Street Ste. 31
Watsonville CA 95076
ph. 831-763-2111
fax. 831-763-2112
info@eco-farm.org
Santa Cruz -- On June 6th, The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to support the adoption of a Precautionary Moratorium on the planting of GE crops in the county as recommended by the GE Subcommittee of the Public Health Commission in a briefing made public last week. Santa Cruz County attorneys have been instructed to draft language for the ordinance to enact restrictions on GE crops immediately Read more
*State and federal laws provide inadequate oversight. The USDA does not know the location of many GE test sites. Some crops not approved for human consumption have found their way into the food supply.
*Lack of safety testing leaves a potentially dangerous void in understanding long-term health effects of GE food, which is still largely unlabeled in the Read more
Before the bill's language was changed late in the debate, it would also have prohibited the state from enacting any seed regulation exceeding federal requirements.
Many farmers, an independent lot by nature, were not happy at the prospect of turning over local controls to Read more
"This is a huge insult for the farm community of Vermont, only widening the gap between conventional and organic farmers."
FAIRFIELD -- Gov. Jim Douglas on Monday vetoed a bill that would have made seed manufacturers liable for damages caused by genetically engineered seeds that drift into the fields of farms that do not want to use them.
Douglas Read more
For Immediate Release:
Six Massachusetts Towns Vote Against Genetic Engineering
This town meeting season, nine towns in Massachusetts have put various measures on their town meeting warrants calling for changes in policy on genetic engineering. As of May 8, 6 of those 9 towns have debated the measures. Each town put slightly different wording on its warrant, but they all concentrated on 3 key demands: 1) mandatory labeling on all genetically engineered foods 2) farmer liability protection to give farmers legal protections when dealing with biotechnology giants and 3)
Read moreSpeaking at the recent Bio- Fach conference in Nuremberg, Germany, Chris Wietrzny, a representative with International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside, said that all 16 regions in Poland have declared themselves GM free. “We worked with local regions and wanted people to feel that the future of their regions are in their hands,” he said.
Wietrzny said Poland has two million small family farms and rich biodiversity that people want to preserve. He also said growing GM and non-GM crops together is not possible. “We don’t believe in any possibility of coexistence of GMO and
Read morePoland's upper house of parliament may ban trade and plantings of genetically modified (GMO) seeds on Thursday and put Warsaw on a collision course with Brussels for endorsing a law that breaks EU rules.
The chairman of the Senate's agriculture committee said he expected senators from the ruling conservative Law and Justice party and several fringe groups to support the draft law, which has already been approved by the lower house of parliament.
"Senators from Law and Justice will back the bill and I have not heard any objections from several other parties, so it
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for GE Free Zones