Campaigns

Food and farming

6 September 2010

Why worry about GM crops?

GM is a new way of producing crops by taking genes from one organism and putting them into another to change the way it grows.

Friends of the Earth Cymru believes that GM crops shouldn't be grown because:

• Safety not proven
  Most safety testing is carried out by the companies who have created the crops.
• Threats to farming
  Genes from GM plants could contaminate non-GM and organic crops.
• Harm to wildlife
  GM crops could lead to greater use of harmful chemicals.
• People don't want it
  A recent Mori survey showed that the majority of people living in Wales didn't want GM.

Welsh farming in crisis

Farming in Wales is changing. Welsh farmers are:

• Struggling to compete with cheap food imports.
• Under pressure from supermarkets to keep cutting costs.

GM crops could be another nail in the coffin for Welsh farming.

...Wales has nothing to gain but a great deal to lose if we follow the GM path...

Farmers Union of Wales

Backing farmers

Friends of the Earth Cymru says:

• Don't grow GM crops in Wales
• Support rural economies through local food schemes like farmers markets
• More organic and greener farming
• Encourage new rural jobs in tourism, recreation and renewable energy projects.

Resource

Find out more about our campaigning work by reading the following resources:

Stop GM Contamination
(PDF† format 110K) February 2005
Steps the Assembly should take to protect Welsh agriculture from GM contamination

GM free Welsh environment
(PDF† format 190K) September 2002
A history of Friends of the Earth Cymru's successful campaign for the Welsh Assembly to adopt a GM free Wales motion.

GM free Welsh Local Authorities
(PDF† format 141K) July 2003
Steps Local Authorities can take to keep Wales GM free.

Summary of Legal Opinion in the matter of co-existence, traceability and labelling of GMOs
(PDF† format 18K) March 2005
One page summary of the new legal opinion below.

Legal Opinion in the matter of co-existence, traceability and labelling of GMOs
(PDF† format 18K) March 2005
New legal opinion criticising the European Commission and UK Government's approach on GM crop co-existence with other crops as "fundamentally flawed".

Read the latest news in the campaign to keep Wales GM free and a selection of our recent success stories.

Press for change

• Wales is currently GM-free please help us keep it that way. Join our email list and stay up-to-date with news and ideas for action direct to your inbox.

†To view PDF files you will need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader. Visually impaired users can get extra help with these documents from access.adobe.com.