Monday, March 06, 2006

Leaked WTO Report Stirs GMO Controversy

'Leaked' WTO report stirs GM food controversy
A pressure group has alleged that a leaked confidential WTO ruling on the recent GM food trade dispute shows that many pro-GM arguments were lost.

UK-based environmental group Friends of the Earth (FoE) claims that the 1,000-page report, distributed earlier this month only to the countries involved in the dispute, reveals that despite claims to the latter, the US, Canada and Argentina in fact failed to win most of their arguments.

Isn't that nice. And it goes on to say...
But biotech industry body EuropaBio has slammed the pressure group for spreading "mischievous nonsense" and trying to frighten people.

"What I sense is that Friends of the Earth and others are making statements about the WTO suggesting that it is forcing people to have things they don't want, when this is not the case at all," Simon Barber, director of the plant biotech unit (PBU) of EuropaBio, told FoodNavigator.

"Argentina, Canada and the US were concerned that the full democratic process was not being used properly. People are not being forced to have things they do not want."

FoE however insists that the alleged leaked report, which Barber says he has not read, is the report that the biotech industry didnt want the public to see.

"It reveals that the big corporations that stand behind the WTO failed to get the big win they were hoping for," said FoE Europe GMO campaigner Adrian Bebb.

And yet most Americans are absolutely clueless about the amount of GM Foods and Genetically Modified Organisms being sold in grocery stores.
"Free trade proponents needed a clear victory in this dispute to be able to push governments in the EU and the developing world to accept genetically modified food."

Eat organic.

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Link: Leaked WTO Report Stirs GMO Controversy