More details of the action
www.gendreck-weg.de
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Support for the first public action against commercial GMOs in Germany.

Statements by Prof. Dr. Michael Succow, Percy Schmeiser, Melaku Worede, Zafrullah Chowdhury, Vandana Shiva, Jose Bove, Sven Giegold and Tewolde Berhan Egziabher.

Sven Giegold
Attac, Germany
I support the action because:
"A vast majority of consumers do not want GMOs in agriculture. Politics is propagating it nevertheless. Therefore civil disobedience is now a legitimate method which supports our successful consumer boycott."

Percy Schmeiser
Farmer, Canada
I support the action because:
"I've been using my own seeds for years, and now farmers like me are being told we can't do that anymore if our neighbours are growing (genetically modified) crops."

Tewolde Berhan Egziabher
Minister of the Environment, Ethiopia
I support the action because:
"Genetic technology is no remedy for the poor countries of this world, because the profit-oriented gentechcompanies will not be able to do good business there in the long term. The genetic diversity available today is more than sufficient to solve the problems of feeding the poorest. Badly informed governments and corrupt members of governments everywhere in the world are the main obstacle to an objective discussion of the true problems of world food supplies. The merciless forces of the free market, which in the wake of globalisation is taking on a cynical, inhuman character, deprive the poorest of the poor of any basis for making a living. We have to ask the questions of the future: our governments have to give priority to the longterm protection of the earth atmosphere and to biodiversity, and then we will be able to solve the problems of globalisaiton: poverty, exodus of employment, energy use, radicalisation and climate change. Time is pressing."

Melaku Worede,
Seeds of Survival,
Prizewinner of the Right Livelihood Award, Ethiopia
I support the action because:
"Our planet is full of genetic diversity, thanks to which humanity has secured its food supplies over centuries in the most variable climatic zones of the earth. This biodiversity has always been the foundation for the satisfaction of basic human needs. It is naive and irresponsible to go for genetic technology, as long as hundreds of thousands of human beings are starving in this world because of political chaos, problems of distribution, the privatisation of the right of access to water and through corruption."

Prof. Dr. Michael Succow
Uni Greifswald, Deutschland
I support the action because:
"What the world needs more urgently than ever are healthy soils and healthy plants. This can only be done through environmentally sensitive farming. This is the only way to safeguard employment in agriculture. With the 'miracle cure' of genetic technology we only make the ecological and social problems of our times even worse, resulting in damage to human beings and nature."

Zafrullah Chowdhury
Physicist, Founder of The Peoples' Health Center, Bangladesh
I support the action because:
"The Third World doesn't need genetic technology. What's most important for us is sustainable agriculture, which can cope with local conditions and manages without growth-retarding substances or insecticides. Gentech is only going to produce new crop failures and insecticidepoisons."

Vandana Shiva
Prizewinner of the Right Livelihood Award, India
I support the action because:
"Genetic technology destroys the cultural inheritance of rural agriculture. Hunger and misery will increase if we allow agro-genetic technology to spread. World food supplies can only be secured through seeds adapted to local conditions."

Jose Bove
Farmer, France
I support the action because:
"GMO's are a problem for the whole of Europe. We can only prevent agricultural gentech by not letting the seeds enter Europe at all. All of us have to stick together against genetic grub, for quality food."