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

A negative image of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) persuaded Swiss
voters to approve a five-year ban on their use in agriculture, the rival
camps agree, November 2005 by Thomas Stephens.

Final results show almost 56 per cent of voters and all the country's 26
cantons backed a people's initiative for a temporary moratorium on GMOs.

While those who had campaigned for a moratorium were jubilant, opponents
said they would work to ensure the issues were properly explained to the
Swiss people.

"Of course we are very happy and satisfied," Daniel Ammann, from the Swiss
Work Group for Genetic Engineering, a coalition against gene food
technology, told swissinfo.

"I think this clear yes is proof of the political power of this alliance
between farmers, consumers and environmental organisations."

The result forces the Swiss government ? which had called for the moratorium
to be rejected ? to place a blanket ban on the cultivation of any plant or
import of any animal whose genes had been altered in the laboratory.

"I think people realised that this is a new technology with many unsolved
problems and environmental and health risks," Ammann said. "They realised
it's not the time to give the green light to the agricultural use of this
technology."


Bio-safety
At the beginning of October, Economics Minister Joseph Deiss said a
moratorium on GMOs in agriculture would be bad news for farmers and
consumers.

He added that a moratorium would give the wrong signal to the scientific
community and would be harmful to economic sectors linked to research.

"I don't think it's a negative signal," countered Ammann. "It's a signal
that research should focus on bio-safety and the development of products
which are useful for agriculture."

While Switzerland is home to many pharmaceutical firms as well as
agro-chemicals group Syngenta, only around one per cent of the research
performed in Switzerland involves GMOs, Ammann said.

He believes the result is good news for consumers. "If you look at all the
results from the past ten years in Switzerland and in Europe, more than 70
per cent of consumers said they do not want genetically modified goods."


Brain drain
Opponents of the moratorium included the Swiss parliament, scientists, the
business community as well as the main centre-right and rightwing parties.

They argue that a 2004 ruling on GMOs already goes a long way by preventing
the use of genetically modified livestock and subjecting GMO plants to a
range of tests.

"[This result] is a multiple package of factors," Klaus Ammann (no relation)
from the Committee against a Gentech Moratorium told swissinfo. Ammann is an
expert in transgenic crops at Bern University and also director of Bern's
Botanical Gardens.

"One is the defence of the motherland, another is the wrong kind of world
view. Genetic engineering is placed with industrial agriculture, the
Americans, the bad, bad President Bush and so on," he said.

Ammann said all this added up to a negative image. "The pro-people had a
very easy game to come with all sorts of pseudo-facts and half-truths
because the population was ready to believe it."

Klaus Ammann is convinced the moratorium sends out a negative signal. "I'm
quite sure about that. I can see that with my colleagues ? there is a brain
drain going on," he said.

Despite this setback, he is confident for the future. "I'm sure that within
five years we will have much better arguments, such as the resistance of
potatoes against potato blight."

"Swiss voters are perfectly well-suited to understand complex issues but
it's a question of whether they want to. If they suck up all the bad news
and don't want to listen to the good news, then you get the situation we
have now."

[www.nzz.ch]

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