“The Corporate Capture of Our Food Production”: No GMOs in the EU, No GMOs in Africa!
Debate in the European Parliament
By Molly Scott Cato MEP
Global Research
June 10, 2016
The European Parliament has had a great week, writes Molly Scott Cato MEP – for those who oppose GMOs in food and farming. MEPs voted on five occasions to say no to GMOs, and gave their support to agroecology as the only sustainable way to feed the world.
This week’s European Parliament plenary saw five different votes on GMOs. Altogether, they give a good idea of the Parliament’s opinion on GMOs – a resounding NO.
With corporations playing an increasing role in our food systems, Greens argue that GMOs are simply a means to profit from our plates, detrimental to smaller-scale farmers and thoroughly damaging to biodiversity.
Recently proposed mergers of big agrochemical multinationals give further cause for concern – Dow with Du Pont, Syngenta with ChemChina, perhaps even Bayer with Monsanto.
As a member of both the Agriculture and Economics Committees in the European Parliament, I am concerned about the corporate capture of our food production; endorsing monocultures, putting patents on life – and packaging it with a pesticide.
The problems of industrial agriculture will not be solved through GMOs or fancy technological tools, but by converting to agro-ecological approaches to farming. The EU should fund research on classical plant breeding adapted to these systems, rather thanpouring 67% of its agriculture research budget into biotechnology.
‘Old’ GMOs out of the door, but ‘new’ GMOs knocking?
The Rest…HERE
