ROME - Genetically modified (GM) crops are no cure for world hunger but solely exist to benefit multinational corporations which patent GM seeds, French anti-globalisation campaigner Jose Bove said.
"Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are no answer to hunger," Bove, an Asterix the Gaul figure with a walrus moustache who has become a trademark hero of the anti-globalisation movement, told Reuters late on the weekend. "It is just that big multinationals want to control all the rights to seeds. With their patents on GM seeds, they can impose on the global farming community the seeds that they sell," added Bove, who shot to world fame when he ransacked a McDonald's site in France in 1999 to protest against U.S. tariffs.
Bove, who has attacked experimental GM fields in France, said: "A plan to stop GMOs is needed. All patents on life should be stopped."
"GMOs do nothing for famine. They do not enable farmers to produce more because GM seeds are more expensive," he said, referring to farmers being obliged to buy patented GM seeds.
Bove was speaking during a march in Rome of thousands of anti-globalisation activists from across the world demanding world leaders change tactics in the war on hunger.
The activists included farmers from poor countries who opposed GM crops. Some carried banners reading, "No to transgenic crops", "No patents on life" and "Hunger is not a problem of means, but of rights."
Next week dozens of leaders, mainly from developing nations, will attend a food summit in Rome hosted by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) aimed at getting the world back on track to achieve a target to halve world hunger by 2015.
"The rules of the game need to be changed. It is unacceptable that 840 million people are dying of hunger," said Bove.
Some scientists believe that genetic manipulation of crops can ease hunger through new varieties that boost yields and are more resistant to drought and global warming.
But anti-globalisation campaigners say while the world is already producing enough food, farmers in poor countries are not producing enough as rich countries that subsidise their agriculture are exporting produce cheaply to poor countries.
"The dumping of exports by rich European countries and the United States is destroying the local capacity to produce in rural communities (in the developing world)," Bove said, urging poor countries to impose a tax on such imports.
"GMOs are also a threat to the environment and could pose a public health risk in the long-term," he added.
Activists warn GMOs can contaminate neighbouring fields via cross-pollination, while no one yet understands the possible health risks from eating GM foods.:
