“World Food Day promotes Agroecology not GE technology”

The UN has stated that agroecology is a major solution to feeding the world and caring for the earth.

Traditional farming and seed saving methods are still being practiced by 70% of the world’s family farmers. However, increasingly seeds are becoming a trade commodity manipulated by Corporate patents for control of the food economy.

“Access to safe nourishing food is a basic human right,” said Claire Bleakley “How we grow our food and maintain a sustainable and vibrant agricultural economy must ensure the rights of farmers to grow safe food without the restrictions of corporate seed control”.

Since the 1950’s, increasing levels of pesticides have ended up on our dinner plates; with each new chemical there has been a rise in chronic illness. For every advance in hybrid mutagenesis breeding there has been a significant decrease of nutrients in the foods. In the 1950’s food plants contained on average 25%-50% more nutrients than they do today.

New Zealand farmers group Federated Farmers top-level board members are being hosted around GE fields in Argentina; then coming back to pressure New Zealand to adopt genetically engineered, nutrient poor crops. What are not being shown are the devastating downstream results of GE crops on the environment, animals and consumers. Workers and consumers living near or working in GE fields are dying of cancers at a rate 100% greater than non-GE areas. Babies are being born without brains. Failures of modern crops overuse of pesticides, rising debt, emergence of super weeds and insects tolerant to the herbicides are causing farmers to suicide in India.

“Poisoning our workers and food chain with patented, corporate controlled GMO’s and pesticides that are killing us and our environment, is criminal” said Bleakley. “The way these foods are controlled and grown is robbing us of the ability to eat safe nourishing food.”

Chemical pollutants are now present in practically all foods, however our Food Standards Agencies do not even assess their safety in the food supply. There is little monitoring of heavy metals, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or additives, approved for the food supply, as it is too expensive. Genetic engineering is being sold as the magic bullet, supposedly a faster and smarter way to evolve seeds.

The Journal Nature has just released a study showing that conventional breeding actually out classes and outperforms genetic engineering technology and produces better crop yields.

An exciting conference with a line up of international speakers, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Professor GE Seralini, Professor Don Huber and Professor Gu Xiulin, is a first for New Zealand. The speakers are experts in their fields of science, and will talk on the issues that New Zealand must consider, in regard to agroecology, organic, chemical and GMO agricultural systems that will help to build a thriving export market economy guaranteeing safe nutritional food production. GE Free NZ fully supports the Food Matters Conference in February 2015 and recommends that you register now.

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