Re: GM crops not a big concern, PNR, Feb. 1.
To quote Wikipedia: “CropLife International is an international federation of agricultural biotechnology companies. CropLife International is mainly driven by BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, FMC Corp., Monsanto, Sumitomo and Syngenta. These companies are sometimes referred to as Big Ag.”
Calling the controller of 85 per cent of the annual pesticide market “CropLife” is like referring to the big, bad wolf as grandmother. CropLife spends billions of dollars annually lobbying the world’s governments and taking them to court.
Canada has been trying to legislate the use of 2,4-D since 1980 but can’t afford the legal cost of CropLife’s attack on Canada under NAFTA. For the truth about 2,4-D, check online the Sierra Club’s 2,4-D information sheet, produced under the informed watch of our esteemed Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands, Elizabeth May.
The Pesticide Action Network (PAN) — “over 600 participating nongovernmental organizations, institutions and individuals in over 90 countries working to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound alternatives” — was formed in response to CropLife’s coercion to use their ubiquitous neonicotinoid pesticides, such as Roundup, linked by scientific research to declining honeybee, Monarch butterfly and frog populations,and threats to human health — and to CropLife’s tactic of donating Roundup-Ready seeds to poor communities in crises.
See the CorpWatch site for information on CropLife’s vertical integration of agriculture which destroys the free market, dominated by CropLife’s ability to dictate profits and what is produced, forcing farmers to accept CropLife’s seeds and pesticides.
Humans have not “been altering the DNA of crops for hundreds of years.”
Compatible types of plants have been hybridized. CropLife’s genetically modified organisms have been altered using techniques such as gene cloning and protein engineering or crossed with animal genes or pesticides, for example.
GMO plants then openly pollinate outward, the true danger of GMOs that CropLife tries to hide. Once this process has begun, it cannot be turned back.
Please research reliable sources, or write Elizabeth May, our MP, who certainly knows more than Lorne Hepworth, a mouthpiece for Big Ag.
Virginia Smith
North Saanich
