‘No to GMO’ say protesters who supported organic farmer en route to London demonstration
Abergavenny Chronicle - 16 October 2003
Gerald Miles and Jim Bowen with local Friends of the Earth protesters at Abergavenny’s Red Square.
A Pembrokeshire organic farmer visited Abergavenny recently aboard his tractor as part of a personal pilgrimage to London to
demonstrate against the growing of GM crops in Wales.
FUW member Gerald Miles, aged 55, and co driver Jim Bowen, passed through Red Square en route to joining hundreds of consumers,
environmentalists and farmers at a central London Tractors and Trolleys Parade against GM earlier this week.
They were welcomed to the town by protesters from the Abergavenny and Crickhowell Friends of the Earth group, whose message was ‘No to GMO’.
The FUW has been at the forefront of the campaign to make Wales a GM free zone. The union is part of an alliance that includes
Friends of the Earth Cymru, GM Free Wales and the Women’s Institute, which has been lobbying politicians against the growing of GM crops.
Mr Miles, a member of GM Free Cymru, said, “I am concerned that no one knows the impact of GM on our health and environment. I believe that
planting GM crops on a commercial scale is not a risk we should be taking, especially as consumer demand for non GM food is overwhelming.
“At the least, GMO scan have an unpredictable and undesirable impact on the environment. Consumer demand for non GM
food is overwhelming and GM crops, whether planted commercially or as trials, will inevitably contaminate both non GM and organic crops.”
He added, “If the government does go ahead with the commercialisation of GM crops, it will put our seed purchases and other chemicals under corporate
control and will be another nail in the farming coffin.”
The Red Square rally included a short address by David Davies AM, supporting the anti GM stance.
FOE co-ordinator Barry Greenwood also read messages of support from Huw Edwards MP and Monmouthshire County Councillor Val Smith.
Mr Greenwood said, “Gerald’s fears are widely shared in the farming community, and are well founded, as leading UK insurance companies have
just refused to insure GM farmers against liability for any damage caused by GM crops.
“A leading insurer has compared the risk to ‘thalidomide, asbestos and terrorism’. So much for government
assurances that anti GM campaigners are making a fuss about nothing.”
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