Betrayal over GM food in Brussels

European Commissioner's John Dalli's decision to approve the cultivation of genetically-modified potatoes in Europe has provoked a widespread reaction of dismay, anger and disappointment.

Large trans-national corporations are money driven and owe their loyalty to their financial turnover. Any cursory knowledge of the way they operate betrays their crass disregard for social or environmental interests. To put it mildly, ethics is not their forte.

As to be expected, most of the time, too many members of the public are woefully ignorant of food production and how agribusinesses have taken control of the food industry worldwide. They influence the way agricultural produce is cultivated and processed and the manner in which animals are raised and maltreated.

For this reason, we expect our politicians, especially politicians at the highest levels, to defend the common good and take the trouble to be informed before making far-reaching and basically irreversible decisions.

It is also inconceivable how a person, no matter how gifted and intelligent, with no background knowledge of agriculture and biology has had the possibility to make an informed and unbiased decision at such short notice.

Highly-professional and informative books such as Eat Your Heart Out, by Felicity Lawrence, should be compulsory reading for politicians responsible for food policy.

Unfortunately, it is a well known fact that decisions in Brussels are influenced by powerful lobbies that are non-representative and patently undemocratic. No doubt, Mr Dalli was under immense pressure to give the green light to genetically-modified food.

The marketing of GM food has caused havoc in the food chain as we are no longer aware of what we are eating. Also, contrary to their claims, in the long term, GM foods are very dependent on herbicides and pesticides. Worse still, once introduced, they contaminate adjacent crops irreversibly and wipe out biodiversity.

Also, the spread of GM crops will give enormous and inordinate control of the staple foods of the world to a handful of northern agribusiness companies.

Farmers could sleepwalk into using GM crops and, by the time they realise the proposed benefits just aren't there, they will not be in a position to go back to a GM-free style of agriculture. That's the danger and that's been the experience of farmers in other parts of the world. The process is irreversible. The crops that we know would be lost forever.

An Irish missionary priest, Fr Sean McDonagh, has been working tirelessly alerting public opinion to the unethical and amoral modus operandi of transnational agribusinesses. He has campaigned assiduously against GM food and published the book Patenting Life, Stop!

Thankfully, the Europeans tend to be much more aware of what is at stake. As was reported in the press, the German Green MEP Martin Hausling claimed that 70 per cent of consumers are against GM foods. This also explains why producers of GM foods are against labelling their products as they know that informed consumers will boycott this food.

The EU is saddled with a Common Agricultural Policy that consumes 48 per cent of the EU Budget and is desperately in need of overdue reform. The wrong-headed method of subsidies has mainly benefited transnational food companies, heavily dependent on chemicals at the expense of wholesome food production and has also resulted in the ruining of the livelihood of countless numbers of farmers, particularly those of the Third World, saddling Europe in general and Malta in particular with desperate illegal immigrants.

I would have hoped that Mr Dalli, as a capable politician, would have given us an example of political leadership that has the vision and courage to influence the Common Agricultural Policy in the interest of both farmers and consumers. We need an alternative approach to agriculture, one which is environmentally, economically, culturally and socially sustainable that will help reduce poverty and help protect the environment.

Most of the European public want a policy that promotes biodiversity and supports and safeguards the regional and traditional farming methods that have so far spared us, to some extent, from mass produced junk that is a public health hazard of monumental proportions.

This implies small-scale, organic, labour-intensive farming that revives rural economies and upholds the crucial principle of subsidiarity.

One hopes that Mr Dalli will heed the public outcry and reconsider his decision that will have such far-reaching, negative and irreversible consequences.