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News :: Agriculture |
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FAMILY FARMERS & ORGANIC CONSUMERS PROTEST IN SACRAMENTO |
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by Organic Consumers
(No verified email address) |
01 Jul 2003
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According to California dairy farmer Walter Kessler, "Family farmers have suffered significant economic losses from the use of GE products, but the truth about GE crops and their impacts on family farmers is being buried in the slick multi-million dollar public relations campaign being waged by the biotechnology industry and promoted by the USDA." |
Standing up to what can only be described as a army of riot police, highway patrol, and county sheriffs, representatives of US family farm groups symbolically dumped bushels of genetically engineered corn at last week's World Conference on Agricultural Science and Technology in Sacramento, CA . Joined by approximately 3,000 spirited consumer, environmental, and Fair Trade activists, members of the National Family Farm Coalition marched and participated in rallies and teach-ins in Sacramento, denouncing genetically engineered crops and USDA policies that promote the corporate takeover of our food supply.
According to California dairy farmer Walter Kessler, "Family farmers have suffered significant economic losses from the use of GE products, but the truth about GE crops and their impacts on family farmers is being buried in the slick multi-million dollar public relations campaign being waged by the biotechnology industry and promoted by the USDA."
The Organic Consumers Association was in the thick of the action at Sacramento, staging a colorful protest and press conference outside a Safeway supermarket on June 24, featuring costumed performers including Dr. Monsanto, Captain Organic, and George Bush. Before a bank of TV cameras and news photographers, under the watchful eyes of a dozen police patrol cars, the OCA demonstrated, with both science and satire, that neither humans nor canines will willingly consume Frankenfoods.
The Sacramento teach-ins and protests were a warm up for the September WTO meetings in Cancun Mexico, where 150,000 people are expected to rally against worldwide GMO contamination and corporate-powered globalization. Attend the WTO teach-ins and protests in Cancun on an escorted delegation with Ronnie Cummins and the OCA: http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/0624_wto.cfm
Excerpted from Biodemocracy "Organic Bytes" Newsletter #16
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