Global Organic Movement Denounces UN/FAO Support for Biotech

IFOAM - International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements

PRESS RELEASE

THE GENE REVOLUTION: NO POTENTIAL FOR THE POOR - YET A THREAT TO THE ENVIRONMENT

The environment and biodiversity, not GMOs, need more FAO attention

Just like the FAO, IFOAM sees the need for increased food production to provide food for the world's growing population. IFOAM shares the view of FAO that 'The challenge is to develop technologies that combine several objectives - increase yields and reduce costs, protect the environment, address consumer concerns for food safety and quality, enhance rural livelihoods and food security'. IFOAM, however, cannot understand why FAO thinks these challenges can be addressed by a risky technology out of reach of the poor. In its own press release, the FAO states that only six countries, four crops and two traits are so far involved in genetic engineering. IFOAM wonders why the poor have to wait for future promises, when there is currently a 'user-friendly' low-cost approach available that is environmentally and socially sound and has substantial economic benefits: Organic Agriculture. IFOAM's new Executive Director Dr. Zadok Lempert points out "through natural technologies and methodologies already in place and human ingenuity, organic agriculture not only opposes GMO technology, but also provides many practical and functional ecological solutions to problems that biotechnology attempts to or promises to solve."