To the European Ministries of Agriculture, Health and the Environment
To the National Constitutional Courts and the European Court of Justice
To the National and Regional Governments and their respective Parliaments

Press release AMA la Vita (Accademia Mediterranea per l'Agroecologia e la Vita, Mediterranean Academy for Agroecology and Life):

"GMOs, Agroecology and Manipulated Rights", by Giuseppe Altieri Letter to the Italian minister Zaia and to the European ministers.
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GMOs, Agroecology and Manipulated Rights.

A "self-defence" Civil Moratorium from Italy on the violation of Constitutional and Natural Rights. Urging to move as soon as possible to Organic Farming and impose a World Ban on GMOs

While the European Court of Justice declares itself against the secret about GMOs plantations (maybe because someone is going to authorise them?), the presence of GMOs in foods even in Organic products still remains "secret" and hidden by "tolerance" thresholds which are not indicated on labels. Within the precautionary principle and the Constitutional inviolable rights (articles 32 and 9 of the Italian Constitution), a legal action of the Italian and European governments is urgently needed because of the current danger of serious personal injury and the risk of irreversible environmental contamination, which were both ascertained by numerous and recent independent scientific studies; it is therefore necessary to adopt zero tolerance policies for GMOs in organic products and in all other foods, as provided for by the new EU regulation 834/2007 concerning organic production, otherwise GMOs would be openly and illegally "hidden".

Furthermore, GMO cultivations must not be authorised in Europe as they would irreversibly contaminate organic and traditional farming, thus violating "the pre-existing rights of existence". Just when the USA protectionism has announced that it will offer strong incentives in favour of national products, why ever should Italy cultivate and eat GMOs, giving up the most imitated agro-food tradition in the world? The weapons of the law and EU Agri-environmental payments i.e. more than 100 billions euros for 2007-2013 regional development programmes compensating for non-revenues and higher costs by law, in addition to 20% of "transaction" costs deriving from the purchase of services considered useful for the organic farmers’ firms, give today a unique chance of implementing a general European agro-ecological reconversion, which is threatened by a planned GMO barbarian invasion that would cause an irreversible destruction of organic farming and agro-food traditions. It is necessary to introduce criminal liabilities for those who contaminate Italian organic and traditional products and every kind of seeds, i.e. for GMO patent holders, distributors and traders, making them pay for damages and land reclamations. Otherwise there will be nothing left for farmers and consumers to do but try to destroy GMO cultivations in “self-defence”, as already happened in other countries.

by agro-ecologist Giuseppe Altieri (Copyright Artecology, 20th February 2009, all rights reserved)
Agernova AMA la Vita (Accademia Mediterranea per l'Agroecologia e la Vita, Mediterranean Academy for Agroecology and Life)

Impossible coexistence of GMOs and the new EU Regulation on Organic Farming

From 1st January 2009 the new EU Regulation 834/2007 allows organic products to contain GMO "accidental" contaminations up to 0.9%, even without requiring that any special indication be shown on labels. After crossing the "tolerance threshold of consumers", who opted en masse for an organic diet exactly to avoid GMOs and pesticides, the EU Commission which was not completely satisfied with its "violation of pristine BIO purity" started just on cue the procedure which could authorise the sowing of two GMO maize varieties. At the same time, Regions are preparing plans of "mixed" cultivation incorrectly defined “coexistence plans” relying on supposed sowing distances of GMOs from traditional cultivations. These are aimed to limit the resulting "natural" (not accidental) and above all irreversible contaminations within the supposed "tolerance” thresholds. All this according to unknown theories. Coexistence would prepare the Italian farming environment which was declared part of UNESCO's heritage for the disappearance of GMO-free cultivations, although the Constitutional Court legitimised GMO-free regions in 2005 in order to safeguard the “pre-existing right” of traditional productions, which are still free from GMOs, and refused the coexistence with GMOs abrogating law no. 5 on "Coexistence” sending it back to Regional governments. Regional governments should at most guarantee only a possible "coexistence on the shelves” with imported GMO products for consumers really intending to eat them, in order to guarantee "the free movement of goods" (even of dangerous products? [Editor's note]). In any case these products should be labelled properly, otherwise how could people choose them? Why should GMOs be hidden in foods? Maybe because consumers do not want to eat them? Exactly for this reason any GMO presence should be indicated on labels, in order to defend the consumers' right to be informed and the freedom of choice, as guaranteed by the Courts of Justice. As long as organic production could not be contaminated, the cultivation of GMOs in Italy or Europe could not even be imagined. If GMO cultivations were authorised, on the other hand, 100% GMO-free cultivations of a certain kind would no longer be possible within a very wide area. This would be against the rights of (Co)-Existence and Freedom of organic farmers and consumers, who cannot be forced to tolerate or eat GMOs.

Dangerous "tolerances" and "manipulation of the rules"

The immobilism of sector associations, which seem to be resigned to accepting illegitimate "tolerances" of GMOs in organic products, is surprising. The 0.1% threshold (1 gramme per kilo) as requested by the President of AIAB (Italian Association for Organic Farming), Carlo Petrini and the so-known "Free from GMOs" coalition, headed by Mario Capanna is not in fact the GMO detectable limit and therefore cannot assure consumers of GMO absence. Analysis techniques (Real-time PCR) can in fact detect even a single particle of transgenic DNA (GMO) present in an analysis sample by causing its replication through very sensitive enzymes for enough time. Therefore, the detectable limit of GMO presence or absence is theoretically always equivalent to the proportion of the single transgenic DNA weight which could be present in an analysis sample to the total weight of the same kind of DNA from the sample itself, i.e. values next to 0.0026% or even less, according to ISPRA (Italian Institute for the Protection and Environmental Research). 0.1% is just the limit of quantitation (LOQ) of GMOs present in an analysis sample. Lower values are reported as "below 0.1%" within the detection or “qualitative” limit of presence/absence (LOD). It is not anyway possible to certify the "absence" of GMOs through values of detected presence which are below an arbitrarily established value considered as the limit of detection. This is obviously not the correct one since the presence of GMO has been "detected". In this case, after eluding the Politics, Science and Ecoethics of the natural laws of Life, GMOs would also elude logical and mathematical laws. But they will not manage to get away from human consciousness and the law, which reveal the clumsy attempt to "manipulate" the rules to hide GMO contaminations in all foods, which are not accidental but rather the result of precise intentions.

False information in the press and "psychological manipulation"

Published statements on alleged GMO contaminations in organic products “which were already authorised in the past” are of grave concern and cause bewilderment, ruining the reputation of Organic Farming. Any Research Institute for Animal Health could confirm that regulation no. 1829/2003 introducing GMO “tolerance” thresholds of 0.9% without requiring special labelling was not actually concerned with organic products. These were ruled in fact by a previous regulation (2092/1991), which excluded any GMO contaminations, including accidental ones, and which was abrogated by the new EU regulation that came into force only on 1st January 2009. Previously, if a certifying authority had tolerated GMO "accidental" contaminations in organic products, it would have acted arbitrarily and illegitimately, thus breaking the pact with consumers, since all necessary procedures to avoid GMO contaminations would not have been followed, as provided for by Regulation 2092/1991 and confirmed by the new EU regulation 834/2007, according to which "GMOs and products produced from or by GMOs should not be used in organic farming" (article 9). Furthermore, Bonino stated that “GMOs are already circulating in our fields”, but this is incorrect. In Italy, in fact, GMO release into the environment is totally forbidden, with zero tolerance in all sowing seeds. The destruction of contaminated maize fields, which were found by the Italian authorities thank to rigorous testing of all seed batches imported, is still vivid in everyone's memory. So far Italian regulations and controls have avoided culpable or wilful contaminations in the only possible way: ZERO tolerance to GMOs. Any authorised level of GMO presence in organic products and sowing seeds would make controls and necessary decontaminations impossible. In this way contaminations would irreversibly spread into the environment. The false propaganda about unavoidable contaminations is trying to create the psychological conditions for GMO tolerances to be accepted in organic products as well, as if Italy were already irreversibly polluted.

"Trojan quibbles" and “Insecurity” Reports for GMO barbarian invasions (and not only)

As happened for "tolerated" residues of pesticides, dioxins and many other polluting substances that are dangerous for human health and the environment, we are facing the usual "Trojan quibble" of "tolerance thresholds", whose aim is to thwart controls and elude liabilities to citizens and organic and traditional farmers, in case of contaminations of cultivations and foods and/or damage to health and the environment. This quibble is necessary to have the subsequent barbarian invasion of GMO cultivations authorised. In this way since there is no specific law of national preservation GMOs would be “free to contaminate” also organic products from 1st January 2009, but not to violate Constitutional rights. And it is not a coincidence that right now transgenic cultivations receive positive "opinions" from the EFSA in Parma, i.e. the European authority that should guarantee food safety, whose remarks rely only on the reports provided by the multinationals producing GMOs and not on independent studies demonstrating exactly the contrary. Even Veronesi, the Italian Minister of Health, instead of advising people to eat organic fruit, pompously announced the creation of a GM-tomato that "prevents" cancer only because it produces a little bit more vitamins, just when Dr Samorindo Peci, from Cerifos Interuniversity association, urged him to initiate research on "promoter" viruses (35 S and V 40).

These are pathogens that are "artificially" introduced in the DNA of GMOs and bring with themselves the foreign DNA fragment (transgene). Such pathogens were found in the DNA of viruses associated to lymphomas and leukaemias of some patients. Five years of research carried out by Dr. Manuela Malatesta demonstrated liver, kidney and testicles abnormalities in rats fed with GMOs, thus confirming the serious risks for human health which were already pointed out by other always ignored researchers. In this regard, the book "La sicurezza degli OGM" (GMO safety) by Arpad Putzstay [Pusztai], EDILIBRI, Milano 2008, is recommended reading. The Italian Research Institute for Food and Human Nutrition (INRAN) has recently observed abnormalities of the immune system caused by GM-maize. This produces no less than 43 altered proteins, including an allergenic one. Prof. Jurgen Zentek demonstrated that guinea pigs fed with GM-maize for consecutive generations significantly lose their faculty to reproduce, thus becoming sterile. However, the EU “Comixture” in Brussels has been approving GMO importations for years, without qualified majorities of ministers, who probably do not want to directly assume responsibility for putting their citizens’ health at risk, thus shifting it onto the "scientific” opinions of the EFSA, which are based only on reports "manipulated” by GMO agrochemical-pharmaceutical multinationals. In a clear conflict of interests, those multinationals have been poisoning us for decades, presenting reports and (in)-tolerance thresholds to pesticides, herbicides and other toxic and not biodegradable chemical substances, which are often mutagenic and carcinogenic and accumulate in food chains causing dramatic and manifest consequences. This is also the case with a number of chemical drugs, which are regularly recalled from the market because of serious damage and disastrous consequences for the population, due to “side effects” and “contraindications”. According to the precaution principle, independent studies need to be taken into consideration more than those presented by those who want to sell a product, thus imposing the elimination of “natural” competition.

Institutional means and the Constitutional right for a prompt Moratorium on GMOs. Zero tolerance and responsibilities for contaminators
The new regulation on organic farming actually guarantees that "100% GMO-free” private trademarks can be available on the market (otherwise impossible in the case of GMO cultivations in Italy), and allows European States to keep national and conventional organic products free from GMOs in favour of health safety (Precaution Principle), Correct Information and citizens’ Freedom of choice. Furthermore, at the thirtieth point of the preamble the regulation declares: "For the sake of clarity and coherence, it should not be possible to label a product as organic where it has to be labelled as containing GMOs, consisting of GMOs or produced from GMOs2. At the same time, how is it possible to allow GMOs to be “hidden” and authorise the tolerance limit with no label also in organic products? Can this regulation be legitimate without a national protection law? On the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Emma Bonino stated that the EU regulation guarantees that consumers will "surely/safely” eat some GMOs hidden in all foods. Is this the kind of safety that the EFSA wants to guarantee?

If we want to safeguard organic products and the whole of Italian farming, they must be kept free from GMOs, creating if necessary a National Organic trademark, as provided for by the new European Regulation, and introducing a total ban on GMO cultivations in Italy. It is also necessary to introduce criminal liabilities for those who contaminate Italian organic and traditional products and sowing seeds of any kind, i.e. for GMO patent holders, distributors and traders, following the EU polluter-pays principle, in defence of Italian consumers and producers. It is GMOs that contaminate "natural” products, not vice versa. The situation calls for an urgent Civil Moratorium asking for the immediate cessation of importation and production of GMOs and GMO derivatives and enforcing the Provision of National Preservation, on the basis of the results demonstrated by recent independent research on the serious risks for human health and the environment. These are both considered inviolable rights by articles 32 and 9 of the Italian Constitution and their defence is not delegated to international treaties. Waiting for a decree from Zaia, Minister for Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, we ask organic farmers for a further guarantee to be given from 1st January 2009: a label indicating 100% GMO-free products, "cultivated in Italy” if possible.

Before it is too late also for Europe
Instead of proposing further useless GMO experimental cultivations, the results of which are widely available in the scientific literature and which can only contaminate the environment deceiving citizens into promising them “some quintals more” (whereas the contracts they sign will also bind their children and grandchildren to pay rights on GMOs), why not promote more independent research on the real and current dangers of GMO foods for human health? And together with possible volunteers, why cannot first of all GMO producers (on the basis of their own reports on the alleged harmlessness, high nutritional values and cancer preventive properties of GMOs) and scientists and politicians who reassure us eat GMOs for 10 years? In the meantime, in Italy we will grow and eat our organic products “as a precaution”, so that science can compare long-term effects of organic, conventional and GMO diets. However, our current knowledge of the laws of Nature and Ecoethics allows us today to call for a World Ban on GMO productions, since such products pose a major threat to life and freedom on earth, together with an immediate abolition of patents on living material, which is the heritage of Nature and Humanity. On the basis of the unscientific reductionism of GMO technology, multinationals are “creating living beings” as never happened before during all the evolutionary history of our Planet. They are violating the laws of Nature and Life and propagating GMO substantial "equivalence”. This is happening although Science demonstrated 30 years ago that an artificial modification of a DNA segment of an organism affects its whole physiological equilibrium, with dangerous and unforeseeable consequences, such as the production of new unknown substances. The lawyer Druker, from the Alliance for Bio-Integrity an association of scientists, religious leaders and consumers which sued the Food and Drug Administration in order to obtain compulsory safety tests and labelling of GMO products in 1998 stated the following: “If the truth about the results obtained from scientific analyses had been told, none of the genetically modified foods would have ever be authorised to enter the American market between 1992 and 1995 and be exported from there to the European market and the rest of the world, and the world population would not have been exposed to this grave risk. It is therefore a legalised genocide".
Inviolable Constitutional Rights (Health, Environment and Freedom) and even the laws of Nature are threatened. Extreme prudence is therefore of the essence, and the purity of Italy should be safeguarded from GMO pollution. Obscure forces and "non-decisions" are taking advantage of some quibbles or technical/legal vacuum (for example, the correct procedures that should avoid GMO accidental contaminations of extra-European origin have not been delineated yet) and are trying violating European and Constitutional provisions to create an irreversible state of fact leading to a point of no return. We will therefore be forced to accept GMO contaminations in all foods and to give up our ancestors’ traditions forever. However, since it is a decision with irreversible consequences for national agro-alimentary sovereign powers, Directive 2001/18/EC provides for the obligation of a consultative popular referendum before any decision concerning the release of GMOs into the environment may be taken. We hope that minister Luca Zaia will not miss the chance to call upon the population to decide to close Italy to GMOs, rescuing the European paralyzed politics from distress. Even though it is at least strange to put the inviolable right to health and the precautionary principle to a referendum, since it would imply only a consultation and not an abrogation, why should the opinion of the constitutionally sovereign people not be taken into consideration? 80% of the Italian citizens absolutely do not want to eat GMOs, and that does not mean that they want to eat them without knowing.

GMOs should be stopped for the future of our children, who risk seeing cultivated fields transformed into "death camps" patented ones, even.

"Gupta cavat lapidem" (Horace) ”¦ With the best patience possible, until we are in time to and pending institutional actions, let us make our appeals of legitimacy in competent bodies.

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult" (Seneca)

Prof. Giuseppe Altieri
Massa Martana, 21st January 2009