NOTE: For an interesting profile of Jonathon Harrington see:
http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Jonathon_Harrington

EXTRACT: "To be a real choice this must include labelling food with any detectable level of GMs and food produce from animals fed GM feed."
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'Label GM food products', say farmers
Sally Williams
Western Mail (front page of 'Country & Farming' section), 8 September 2009
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/countryside-farming-news/farming-news/2009/09/08/label-gm-food-products-say-farmers-91466-24629461/

WELSH farmers are calling for "Frankenstein food" GM products to be labelled, as a survey published today raises fresh concerns about the technology.

Philip Bevan of Great House Farm, a 220-acre organic farm in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, said Welsh consumers have every right to know exactly what the food they eat contains, as a survey by Consumer Focus Wales shows that almost a quarter of them (24%) think GM should be banned from sale in the UK.

Mr Bevan said, "As organic farmers, we would always avoid GM food at all costs.

"We believe in pesticide and herbicide-free food.

"We think it is definitely the healthier option but would welcome more research into the benefits of organic food to the body.

"The trouble is that more and more pesticides are being brought into the food chain all the time and who knows what untold damage they are doing?"

As GM crops become more commonplace around the world, CFW warned that it is likely to become a hotly-debated topic in future.

And Haf Elgar a campaigner, for Friends of the Earth Cymru agreed that any traces of GM should be pointed out clearly to the consumer, as soon as possible.

"Clear food labelling is a must in order to give consumers a choice and make sure that we all know what's in the food we eat," she said.

"But to be a real choice this must include labelling food with any detectable level of GMs and food produce from animals fed GM feed.

"Friends of the Earth supports establishing a Sustainable Agriculture Research Council to provide independent research into the effects of GM crops and food, instead of relying on research largely done by the same biotech companies that develop GM food.

"People in Wales need to be confident that they can be GM-free in terms of the crops we grow and the food we eat."

National Farmers' Union Cymru president, Dai Davies, said: "NFU Cymru believes that consumers should be free to make an informed choice as to whether or not they choose products containing GM ingredients, and that in turn farmers should be guided in terms of what they produce by the purchasing decisions of their customers.”

But controversial farmer Jonathon Harrington, who has challenged the GM-free status of Wales by planting GM crops on his land near the Black Mountains in Powys, believes GM technology could help tackle the world's food shortages.

Mr Harrington, a chartered biologist, claims it can give plants immunity from pest attack, make them resistant to disease and withstand drought too. [GMW: There's not a single GM crop on the market for drought resistance and almost none have disease resistance]

But last January, there were calls for Mr Harrington to face prosecution over his refusal to comply with regulations that oblige him to reveal where he obtained the GM seeds and to whom he passed the maize on to.

He claims to have grown the maize on his farm at Tregoyd near Hay-on-Wye, in a bid to influence the Assembly Government’s policy on GM crops.

In January, he told the Western Mail he had imported a small quantity of two varieties of forage maize with the MON 810 trait, which makes plants resistant to the European corn borer, a pest that is common in southern Europe.

“There are a number of potential benefits the (GM) technology could offer Welsh farmers if the Assembly Government showed a more positive attitude towards it,” he said.

He believes that consumer choice was taken away several decades ago because he claims most people are either wearing or consuming plant products that have been bred using technology that involves artificially manipulating plant genes.

“I can’t think of a single crop plant in the UK that has not been bred by artificially mutating its genes using chemicals or radiation,” he added. [GMW: Must be brain dead then - perhaps Harrington's been sampling his own produce.]