www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

During an action-day for a transgenic-free county last Saturday in
Vaterstetten, the Society for the Protection of Nature announced the
formation of a German-wide association of farmers and bee-keepers, May 2006
by Karin Kampwerth translated by Mark Hutko and Stephan Nyeki, CheckBiotech.

They are planning to organize an international demonstration in
Angelbrechting, during the Pentecost holiday, under the campaign name
?Gene-dirt away? (ed. literal translation).

At the same time they plan to destroy a transgenic cornfield belonging to
the governmental field-testing station in Grub. The decision to make the
county the place of the next ?voluntary field liberation?, as the activists
refer to the destruction of transgenic plants, was made during a meeting
with Canadian farmer, Percy Schmeiser, who gave an account of his battle
against GM companies, two weeks ago in Grafing.

?It just cannot be true that everybody neighbouring the transgenic cornfield
is against the technology?, complained Juergen Binder, a beekeeper from the
state of Baden-Würtenberg, who came to Vaterstetten as a representative of
the campaign. ?We're now going to do something about this?, he said
referring to the planned field destruction, which he would like to see
defined as civil disobedience.

Representatives of the French farmers-union, farmers and scientists from
Hungary, Poland, Romania, Norway, Switzerland and Brazil have confirmed
their participation in the long-planned GM-free weekend in Angeibrechting.

Meanwhile, Olaf Rautenberg, the district chairman of the Society for the
Protection of Nature, who initiated the protest day together with thirteen
partner-groups of farmers and environmentalists, criticized the action day.
The Society for the Protection of Nature does not support violence against
the plantation of transgenic corn, which after all is legal. ?We want to
persuade by dialogue?. In this respect, the day of action should help to
explain the unexplained risks of transgenic seed to users. However, the
public made little use of this. Only 50 people attended the lectures,
including the SPD member of parliament Edward Schurer, to the disappointment
of the organizers.

Nevertheless, the partner-groups and Franz Lenz, the district leader of the
Bavarian farmers union, used the opportunity to make some short statements.
The main criticism concerned the possible danger to human and animal health,
due to the lack of long-term experiments on transgenic crops, as well as the
independence of farmers from a handful of large conglomerates which have
patented the seeds. This was reason enough for Olaf Rautenberg to continue
building a dialogue, ?because it is not right to waste taxes on something
nobody wants?.

www.checkbiotech.org

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