first tranche of quotes below taken from Jim O'Connor's excellent Irish 'Planorganic' website
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1,000 GMO-FREE ZONES ON EARTH DAY 2005

The GM-free Ireland Network cordially invites you to collaborate in launching 1,000 local GMO-free zones throughout Ireland at 2pm on Earth Day, 22 April 2005.
http://gmfreeireland.org/zones/
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FACTS & QUOTES
http://www.planorganic.com/facts_quotes.htm

"What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that the technology was good and that it was almost immoral to say that it wasn't good because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And there was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you're against it, you're Luddites, you're stupid. There was rhetoric like that even here in this department. You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view on some of the issues being raised. So I pretty much spouted the rhetoric that everybody else around here spouted; it was written into my speeches." US Secretary of Ag, Dan Glickman, under the Clinton Administration, post-departure.

'Like I said before, I would rather be fishing with my grandkids than fighting this but, by golly, somebody, somewhere, sometime has to take a stand.' - Percy Schmeiser speaking in Norfolk at the 2020 'Feeding or Fooling the World?' debate.

'For any scientist who wants a good job and a nice home with mortgage payments, he's not going to choose the Union of Concerned Scientists.' Hugh Gusterson, MIT, quoted in Science Good, Nature Bad: The Biotech Dogma.

'When we spliced the profit gene into academic culture, we created a new organism - the recombinant university. We reprogrammed the incentives that guide science. The rule in academe used to be "publish or perish." Now bioscientists have an alternative - "patent and profit." ' - Paul Berg, Stanford University.

July 2001 "...... in Genoa many fools have received their due." Andrew Apel, editor of the biotech industry's Agbionews, referring to the death and injury meted out by the brutal Italian police during the anti-globalisation demonstrations.

'Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men'. - Martin Luther King.

Every day in America, 250,000 people suffer food poisoning, 1,000 are hospitalised, and 25 die.

'For some, talk of sustainable agriculture sounds like a luxury the poor can ill-afford. But in truth it is good science, addressing real needs and delivering real results. For too long it has been the preserve of environmentalists and a few aid charities. It is time for the major agricultural research centres and their funding agencies to join the revolution.' New Scientist, 3 February, 2001.

'Humans, in the last 60 seconds of biological time, have made a rubbish tip of Paradise' - Irish environmental group, Voice.

It is poverty that denies people access to food; gene technology makes food even dearer and thus even less available to the poor. Political and financial will combined with safe, sustainable agricultural systems and a move towards vegetarianism realistically promise lasting solutions to world hunger and environmental conservation. ' Jim O'Connor, Hungry Hill, Cork, Ireland. Letter published in Time, Aug 28th '00, in reply to a pro-GM article by Bill Gates.

(But even captains of the GM industry say the same as above). 'If anyone tells you that GM is going to feed the world, tell them that it is not
To feed the world takes political and financial will'. Steve Smith, SCIMAC and Novartis (now SYNGENTA), Tittleshall Village Hall public meeting on proposed local GM farm scale trial, 29th March, 2000.

'The US and Europe account for 80% of world food exports - We are killing everything with our export subsidies' - Daniel Bove, London, June 2001.

'One cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created it.' - Einstein.

'The responsibility for ensuring safe, sustainable and ethical production is shared by consumers, producers and society.' - Sweden's Ag. Min., Margareta Winberg, April 2001 at EU meeting in Sweden.

'We don't know shit about biology.' - Craig Ventner the unraveller of the human genome.

Every 30 seconds a baby dies because it was not breastfed

FDA (US, Food and Drug Administration) estimate that 20% of chickens and 50% of turkeys contain toxins and that 80 million people "may get sick from factory-contaminated food", costing the nation $5 $10 billion annually.

'The one benefit of the GM debate is that the average Joe is now talking about food security.' - Alex Wijeratna of the development agency, Action Aid, in Financial Times 8/9/’00.

'If Monsanto can collect fees from farmers who find their fields contaminated with GM crops, should computer users pay licence fees to the writers of computer viruses ?' New Scientist , April 28, 2001, Letters, p. 53, Paying the polluter,Thomas Ward, University of East Anglia.

'The challenge for western scientists is to develop a holistic science to help revitalise all kinds of non-corporate sustainable agriculture and holistic medicine that can truly bring food security and health to the world.' - Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, in a paper delivered to a US academy 16th April '01.

'Health issues are the killing fields for the biotech industry'. PR firm quoted in NGIN, Newsletter, 18th March ’01.

'Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the less developed countries?. The economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable. Under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted'. Internal memo, Lawrence Summers, chief economist, World Bank, 1991.

'We consider the use of the South's rural poverty to justify the monopoly control and global use of genetically modified food production by the North's transnational corporations, not only an obstructive lie, but a way of derailing the solutions to our Southern rural poverty. It is the height of cynical abuse of the corporations' position of advantage.' Joint statement signed by over 40 developing country NGOs.

Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger; 75% are children.

'Human health will continue to suffer on the anvil of profit'. Dr R. Anderson.

'The hope of the industry (ABCs AgBioTech Corps) is that over time the market is so flooded (with GM organisms) that there’s nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender!' Don Westfall, Vice President, Promar International, Washington, consultants to Kellogs, Unilever, Aventis etc. Full report, $5,000!

The global economy is worth $25 trillion. A trillion is 1,000 billion. !% of this would solve all poverty, healthcare and educational problems throughout the world.

A farmer on UK, TV discussion forum said in exasperation at environmentalists in the audience that, "Roundup is so safe you could drink it"!

"As we move on into this so-called biotech revolution and we start producing more and more transgenic manipulations, we'll start seeing pieces of DNA interacting with each other in ways that are totally unpredictable... I think this is probably the largest biological experiment humanity has ever entered into." - Ignacio Chapela

"As a scientist, I wouldn't drink milk from cows fed GM with the present state of knowledge". Professor Bob Orskov, OBE, Director of the International Feed Resource Unit (Aberdeen), quoted on www.farm.org.uk

"Anyone who looks into it (the WTO and Cancun) objectively cannot but be shocked at the way the rules are rigged." Mary Robinson, former Irish prsident, lately UN Human Rights Commissioner and now at Oxfam.

"Every sixty seconds, thirty acres of rain forest are destroyed in order to raise beef for fast-food restaurants that sell it to people, giving them strokes and heart attacks, which raise medical costs and insurance rates, providing insurance companies with more money to invest in large corporations that branch out further into the Third World so they can destroy more rain forests." From George Carlin's book, Napalm & Sillyputty (check Amazon) on deforestation.

'The deal would be this: If the Americans would stop lying about us, we would stop telling the truth about them.' - EU Development Commissioner Poul Nielson quoted in 'EU's Nielson blasts U.S. "lies" in GM food row' (Reuters Jan 20th 2003 but via www.ngin.org.uk ) www.forbes.com/home_europe/newswire/2003/01/20/rtr852190.htm
.....
http://www.gmwatch.org/

"We are confronted with the most powerful technology the world has ever known, and it is being rapidly deployed with almost no thought whatsoever to its consequences."
Dr Suzanne Wuerthele, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) toxicologist

"All policymakers must be vigilant to the possibility of research data being manipulated by corporate bodies and of scientific colleagues being seduced by the material charms of industry. Trust is no defence against an aggressively deceptive corporate sector."
The Lancet

"We strongly object that the image of the poor and hungry from our countries is being used by giant multinational corporations to push a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly nor economically beneficial..." Delegates from 20 African Countries to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN meeting on Plant Genetic Resources

"Certainly, humanity's record for using technology wisely, sensitive to its potential effects on society, on people, on environment is, at best, mixed and hardly encouraging."
Robert Shapiro, when Chief Executive of Monsanto Corporation
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FEEDING OR FOOLING THE WORLD?
http://ngin.tripod.com/feedingorfooling.htm

"As we stand on the edge of a new millennium, we dream of a tomorrow without hunger
Worrying about starving future generations won’t feed them. Food biotechnology will."
Monsanto European advertising campaign, 1998

"We strongly object that the image of the poor and hungry from our countries is being used by giant multinational corporations to push a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly nor economically beneficial to us. On the contrary, we think it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems that our farmers have developed for millenia and that it will thus undermine our capacity to feed ourselves."
Delegates from 20 African Countries to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN on Plant Genetic Resources, 1998

"I'm against the theory of the multinational corporations who say if you are against hunger you must be for GMO. That's wrong, there is plenty of natural, normal good food in the world to nourish the double of humanity. There is absolutely no justification to produce genetically modified food except the profit motive and the domination of the multinational corporations."
U.N. human rights envoy and special investigator on the right to food, Jean Ziegler : U.N. food envoy questions safety of gene crops (Reuters, 15 Oct 2002)

"Seeking a technological food fix for world hunger may be the most commercially malevolent wild goose chase of the new century."
Dr Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet

"I don't think any of us would disagree that, if an alternative exists to a GE solution, it's to be preferred"
Mr Hodson QC, acting on behalf of the Life Sciences Network at the New Zealand Royal Commission on Genetic Modification, 8th Feb 2001

"The poor and hungry need low-cost, readily available technologies and practices to increase food production."
Professor Jules Pretty, Director of the Centre for Environment and Society, University of Essex

"Low-tech 'sustainable agriculture,' shunning chemicals in favour of natural pest control and fertiliser, is pushing up crop yields on poor farms across the world, often by 70 per cent or more... The findings will make sobering reading for people convinced that only genetically modified crops can feed the planet's hungry in the 21st century... A new science-based revolution is gaining strength built on real research into what works best on the small farms where a billion or more of theworld's hungry live and work... It is time for the major agricultural research centres and their funding agencies to join the revolution."
New Scientist editorial, February 3 2001

"Organic agricultural production based upon cheap, locally available materials and technologies provides an important alternative in the search for an environmentally sound and equitable solution to the problem of food security."
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN

"Biotechnology and GM crops are taking us down a dangerous road, creating the classic conditions for hunger, poverty and even famine. Ownership and control concentrated in too few hands and a food supply based on too few varieties of crops planted widely are the worst option for food security."
Christian Aid report - Biotechnology and GMOs

"Concerning the future, for the world as a whole there is enough, or more than enough, food production potential to meet the growth of effective demand."
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN

"History has many records of crimes against humanity, which were also justified by dominant commercial interests and governments of the day... Today, patenting of life forms and the genetic engineering which it stimulates, is being justified on the grounds that it will benefit society... But in fact, by monopolising the 'raw' biological materials, the development of other options is deliberately blocked. Farmers therefore, become totally dependent on the corporations for seeds".
Prof. Wangari Mathai of the Green Belt Movement, Kenya, Nobel prize winner

"We already know today that most of the problems that are to be addressed via Golden Rice and other GMOs can be resolved in matter of days, with the right political will."
Hans Herren, Director General, The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Kenya; winner of the World Food Prize 1995

"As compared with the challenge of controlling protein-energy malnutrition, elimination of VAD [Vitamin A Deficiency] can be achieved rapidly. The cost-effectiveness ratio is also highly favourable. It is therefore a test case of political will, and managerial capacity to implement known technologies and known solutions."
World Health Organisation, 2000

"Some Green Revolution crops are poor in vital nutrients such as calcium, iron, and vitamins C and A. But often, under-utilised crops are rich in these nutrients. One study found four African home-garden crops, leafy vegetables with twice the micronutrients of spinach."
Stefano Padulosi, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome

"It is argued that the Indian peasants in Chiapas, Mexico are backward, they produce only two tons of maize per hectare as against six on modern Mexican plantations. But this is only part of the picture. The modern plantation produces six tons per hectare and that’s it. But the Indian grows a mixed crop. Among his corn stalks, that also serve as support for climbing beans, he grows squash and pumpkins, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and all sorts of vegetables, fruit and medicinal herbs. From the same hectare he also feeds his cattle and chickens. He easily produces more than 15 tons of food per hectare and all without commercial fertilisers or pesticides and no assistance from banks or governments or transnational corporations."
Jose A. Lutzenberger, former Minister of the Environment for Brazil

"Bangladeshi people do not need GM food. GM food means the destruction of farmers and letting the companies take over. We need to preserve a biodiversity-based food production without the application of poisonous chemicals. Bangladeshi farmers are rejecting the idea that GM food can meet the needs of hungry people. This is nonsense. GM can feed the GREED of the companies, not the NEED of the hungry people. People are hungry not because we are not able to produce, but because the food production base is being systematically destroyed by the interventions of the profit-seeking companies. They want to make business out of our hunger!"
Farida Akhtar, UBINIG. Policy Research for Development Alternatives, Bangladesh

"Greater concentration of ownership inherent in the new technologies, and laws drawn up to protect them, is set to repeat and worsen one of the great mistakes of the green revolution. More dependence and marginalisation loom for the poorest. The inability to contain genetic material once released into the environment means that even field trials of new crops are tantamount to uncontrolled, irreversible experiments and invasions of the global commons."
Christian Aid report - Selling Suicide: farming, false promises and genetic engineering in developing countries

"We consider the use of the South's rural poverty to justify the monopoly control and global use of genetically modified food production by the North's transnational corporations, not only an obstructive lie, but a way of derailing the solutions to our Southern rural poverty. It is the height of cynical abuse of the corporations' position of advantage."
Joint statement signed by over 40 developing country NGOs

"It is only too obvious to concerned scientists, farmers and citizens alike that we are about to repeat, step by step, the mistakes of the insecticide era, even before it is behind us. I would even argue that these new miracle technologies are mostly not necessary, let alone desirable, to solve the world's food security problem."
Hans R.Herren, Director General, The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Kenya; winner of the 1995 World Food Prize

"Biotechnology and GM crops are taking us down a dangerous road, creating the classic conditions for hunger, poverty and even famine. Ownership and control concentrated in too few hands and a food supply based on too few varieties of crops planted widely are the worst option for food security."
Christian Aid report: Biotechnology and GMOs

'GM is a step too far. It's the last flowering of a discredited form of agriculture.'
Donald Morton, Norfolk farmer farming 730 acres

"There are still hungry people in Ethiopia, but they are hungry because they have no money, no longer because there is no food to buy... we strongly resent the abuse of our poverty to sway the interests of the European public."
Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher of the Institute of Sustainable Development in Addis Ababa on the way pro-GM scientists try to promote GM crops through emotional blackmail: saying they are vital to feed the world

"There are 800 million hungry people in the world; 34,000 children starve to death every day. There are those who consider this a tragedy, and then there are the biotech companies and their countless PR firms, who seem to consider it a flawless hook for product branding. It is an insult of the highest and most grotesque order to turn those who live from day to day into the centerpiece of an elaborate lie. ...the companies who make [GE foods], and the flacks who hawk their falsehoods, offer us a new definition of depravity, a new standard to plunge for in our race to care least, want more, and divest ourselves of all shame."
Michael Manville - Welcome to the Spin Machine

"It is only too obvious to concerned scientists, farmers and citizens alike that we are about to repeat, step by step, the mistakes of the insecticide era, even before it is behind us. I would even argue that these new miracle technologies are mostly not necessary, let alone desirable, to solve the world's food security problem."
Hans R.Herren, Director General, The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Kenya; winner of the 1995 World Food Prize


MORE QUOTES ON GM:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=3&page=1