Viva! - Press Release

Viva!
8 York Court
Wilder Street
Bristol BS2 8QH Tel: 0117 944 1000
Fax: 0117 924 4646

email:
tonyw@viva.org.uk

28 March 2000

GMOs - The Hidden Agenda

There is a secret agenda behind the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GM0s) which will accelerate global collapse, claims an article in the latest edition of Viva!Life magazine. Author Tony Wardle maintains that even if current field trials prove GMOs to be totally benign, and they kill not a single lacewing or ladybird, they will nevertheless result in a human, animal and environmental catastrophe.

In a well-researched and detailed analysis of global food supply, Wardle sets out the real reasons behind the introduction of genetically modified crops. They have nothing to do with feeding the starving, he maintains, but are an attempt to increase animal fodder supplies from a diminishing pool of productive land. Vast increases in fodder are essential to support the global spread of factory farming - on which biotech company profits depend. The outcome will be a reduction in crops for human consumption.

Livestock production is so inefficient that it can take 10Kg of vegetable protein to produce just 1Kg of meat protein and demands large quantities of fresh water. It will result, Wardle maintains, in the obscenity of increasing numbers of poor people starving while world supplies of food and water are monopolised for caged animals. Far from solving two of the world’s major humanitarian crises, GMOs will worsen them.

The process has already started and in a chilling example of what we can expect, he quotes the experience of China. Encouraged to adopt the mass production of pigs and chickens, it has gone from being an exporter of grain to an importer and in one year has effectively wiped out the entire grain production of Canada.

Wardle explains that the pharmaceutical biotech corporations’ profits are almost entirely dependent, directly and indirectly, upon factory farming. Dosing diseased and dejected animals produces a major proportion of their income. Artificial fertilisers and pesticides for intensive fodder production provides the second profit centre. Treating human diseases caused largely by eating animal products is the third. Wardle describes it as their “golden goose - a wonderful gigantic, circular scam”.

Over 43 billion animals were slaughtered in 1998 and global forecasters are predicting a 68 per cent growth in meat consumption over the next 20 years, encouraged by the biotech corporations. There is not enough land to feed this number of animals. The proposed solution is the intensification of agriculture, spearheaded by GM crops. The result will be a worsening of problems already identified by the UN’s environmental director as ‘catastrophic’ - loss of fresh water, accelerating destruction of forests and other habitats, spreading deserts, land degradation, deadly nitrogen pollution and a further increase in global warming. It will also fuel the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

“Every official report for the last decade or so has charted the accelerating and rapid collapse of the world’s environment”, says Tony Wardle. “What is being foisted upon us with governmental support is an encouragement of this decline. The wretched of the earth are cynically being exploited as a PR stunt yet it is they who will be the first to pay the price with a massive increase in starvation and loss of fresh water.

"The evidence couldn’t be clearer”, he concludes. “The UN warns of : ‘A series of looming crises and ultimate catastrophe which can only be averted by a massive increase in political will’. That will is entirely lacking and a future cause of global decline is being presented as a cure - for the sake of short-term commercial advantage. GMOs should be resisted in their entirety with passion and determination. They are like prescribing blood letting for a haemorrhage.”

For further information contact Tony Wardle on 0117 944 1000

Note to editors: A fully-referenced copy of the article is available on request.



Viva! 8 York Court Wilder Street Bristol BS2 8QH Tel: 0117 944 1000 Fax: 0117 924 4646 email: tonyw@viva.org.uk	28 March 2000 GMOs - The Hidden Agenda There is a secret agenda behind the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GM0s) which will accelerate global collapse, claims an article in the latest edition of Viva!Life magazine. Author Tony Wardle maintains that even if current field trials prove GMOs to be totally benign, and they kill not a single lacewing or ladybird, they will nevertheless result in a human, animal and environmental catastrophe. In a well-researched and detailed analysis of global food supply, Wardle sets out the real reasons behind the introduction of genetically modified crops. They have nothing to do with feeding the starving, he maintains, but are an attempt to increase animal fodder supplies from a diminishing pool of productive land. Vast increases in fodder are essential to support the global spread of factory farming - on which biotech company profits depend. The outcome will be a reduction in crops for human consumption. Livestock production is so inefficient that it can take 10Kg of vegetable protein to produce just 1Kg of meat protein and demands large quantities of fresh water. It will result, Wardle maintains, in the obscenity of increasing numbers of poor people starving while world supplies of food and water are monopolised for caged animals. Far from solving two of the world’s major humanitarian crises, GMOs will worsen them. The process has already started and in a chilling example of what we can expect, he quotes the experience of China. Encouraged to adopt the mass production of pigs and chickens, it has gone from being an exporter of grain to an importer and in one year has effectively wiped out the entire grain production of Canada. Wardle explains that the pharmaceutical biotech corporations’ profits are almost entirely dependent, directly and indirectly, upon factory farming. Dosing diseased and dejected animals produces a major proportion of their income. Artificial fertilisers and pesticides for intensive fodder production provides the second profit centre. Treating human diseases caused largely by eating animal products is the third. Wardle describes it as their “golden goose - a wonderful gigantic, circular scam”. Over 43 billion animals were slaughtered in 1998 and global forecasters are predicting a 68 per cent growth in meat consumption over the next 20 years, encouraged by the biotech corporations. There is not enough land to feed this number of animals. The proposed solution is the intensification of agriculture, spearheaded by GM crops. The result will be a worsening of problems already identified by the UN’s environmental director as ‘catastrophic’ - loss of fresh water, accelerating destruction of forests and other habitats, spreading deserts, land degradation, deadly nitrogen pollution and a further increase in global warming. It will also fuel the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. “Every official report for the last decade or so has charted the accelerating and rapid collapse of the world’s environment”, says Tony Wardle. “What is being foisted upon us with governmental support is an encouragement of this decline. The wretched of the earth are cynically being exploited as a PR stunt yet it is they who will be the first to pay the price with a massive increase in starvation and loss of fresh water. "The evidence couldn’t be clearer”, he concludes. “The UN warns of : ‘A series of looming crises and ultimate catastrophe which can only be averted by a massive increase in political will’. That will is entirely lacking and a future cause of global decline is being presented as a cure - for the sake of short-term commercial advantage. GMOs should be resisted in their entirety with passion and determination. They are like prescribing blood letting for a haemorrhage.” For further information contact Tony Wardle on 0117 944 1000 Note to editors: A fully-referenced copy of the article is available on request.