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Genetically modified food |
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Pack 1 Our GM food pack called for a five year moratorium on the growing of GM crops in the UK. |
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We asked you to send a postcard to your MP calling for a "Five Year Freeze" GM crops and to encourage people to sign a petition in favour of the freeze. The timing of this action was extremely useful as it helped to increase pressure on MPs just when GM food was hitting the headlines.
The Five Year Freeze is a coalition of over 120 organisations. Postcards therefore went out to many groups other than Friends of the Earth. But thanks to the extremely high response-rates of Campaign Express, we managed to really boost the numbers, adding approximately 2000 postcards to MPs and 8000 new signatories for the petition.
As you know, our GM campaign was extremely successful. It resulted in nearly all major supermarkets and food manufacturers from abandoning GM ingredients. And, because of pressure from the Five Year Freeze campaign, Government plans for commercialisation of GM crops in the UK were crucially delayed. Pete Riley, Friends of Earth's Real Food campaigner, said: "If it wasn't for these postcards, Government would have moved ahead much faster."
Although there is no official five year moratorium on GM food in place, there is an effective one. This is because of the successful consumer boycott of GM food in the UK and also the fact that many European states have refused marketing consents for the commercial growing of GM crops.
Thanks to the efforts of people like you, we are winning the fight against GM food. But there is still much more to do. GM crops are being fed to farm animals in vast quantities. Accidental contamination of human food still goes on with no-one being held accountable. And the Government is still pushing ahead with farm trials of GM crops in the UK.
No doubt there will be more action needed from Campaign Express on food in the future!
See our Real Food site for more information on the GM campaign.
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