New Zealand a GE Free Nation - Keep Monsanto's GE seeds out

New Zealand a GE Free Nation - Keep Monsanto's GE seeds out. May 25th 3pm – Speakers include Sister Loyola, voted New Zealand's top gardener in 2008.

The speed that the social network has mediated the march has exploded from its beginnings and everyone is invited.

The Wellington organized march promises to make an impact. There are 12 cities all over New Zealand and up to 388 cities in 44 Countries around the World participating in the "March against Monsanto".

It is illegal to grow genetically engineered (GE) plants in New Zealand. However, there are GE foods 68 varieties of only 7 food classes approved by the trans Tasman Food Standards Australia New Zealand Authority (FSANZ) for the New Zealand food chain. These foods contain one or more (stacked) herbicide resistant traits to glyphosate, dicamba, quizalofop, 2,4-D, glufosinate ammonium) or insecticide producing traits (Bt Cry spp endotoxins).

Unless stated as non-GE or Organic, around 70% of processed foods from imported soy, corn, canola, cotton seed contain GE derived ingredients mainly in the form of vegetable oils, high fructose corn syrup, soy isolates, soy lecithin of which high levels are used in breads and cakes.

There is now robust scientific evidence to back up the link between GE plants and growing weed and pest resistance to common herbicides; pest and fungal diseases; yield losses; soil microbial changes and nutritional degradation. These all pose serious dangers to the environment, animals and human health.

The New Zealand Food Safety Minister and FSANZ regulators persist in ignoring evidence of harm from GE foods, relying on the opinions of Industry.

“The public remembers the long-term harm from Monsanto developed Agent Orange, Dioxins, Thalidomide, DDT, and PCB’s, which are still affecting children born to poisoned sufferers in our communities” said Claire Bleakley, president of GE Free NZ “The public at that time was assured through regulators and Governments that these products were safe ”.

There will be a petition circulating that calls on the Food Standards Authority (FSANZ) to freeze any new GE applications and recall all GE foods and conduct a safety review its GE food approvals in light of new evidence of serious harm facing consumers.

“The March against Monsanto has been triggered by the suffocating tentacles that large transgenic biotech corporations, like Monsanto, have over every level of the food supply from the laboratory created corporate patented GE seed in the fields to the plate of consumers” said Claire Bleakley, “ We already have the solutions to the problems and thank our farmers who are planting the right forage crops for our animals, providing locally grown foods and using organic sustainable systems that put the least chemicals into our bodies. We are proud to still be a GE Free Food producing country.

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