Irish Times / 03/31/99
To "mess around with God's creation" by fundamentally changing the genetic make-up of plants is a mortal sin, an organic farmer and writer, Mr John Seymour (84), claimed in court. "And it's a mortal sin, if you understand that, not to prevent it," he added.
When it emerged that Monsanto was going to carry out a GM crop trial on a quarter of an acre within four miles of his land, he expressed displeasure at a public meeting and wrote to the EPA insisting it was "the most dangerous experiment ever carried out on this planet".
He had attended a food fair in Duncannon on June 21st last where there was debate about genetic engineering. He had sung a song he had composed about GM crops coming to his area, before travelling to the test site with his friend, Mr Richard Roche.
When they arrived, he suspected "the men of the law were behind the hedge, which they were". He pulled up a few beet and was quickly arrested. After leaving, they met more protesters approaching the site and returned with them.
Ms Adrienne Murphy, a freelance journalist, described how she became increasingly taken aback about gene technology and the testing of GM crops in Ireland as she researched it in the course of her work. She wrote to the EPA in a state of anxiety to try to persuade it to think carefully about allowing "such a dangerous experiment".
She pulled up plants on the test plot in an effort to get rid of "the threat that genetic engineering was presenting". Asked if she would continue to destroy sites, she said she would continue to inform people of the imminent danger to health and the environment but did not plan to organise "anything like this again".
Mr Ivan Ward, an organic farmer, of Arthurstown said he lived less than a mile from the GM crop site and felt so strongly that he organised a protest march in his area. Not only was he concerned about the possible impact of GM plants on his farm, but also on wild sea beet, which grew prolifically in the area and was closely related to sugar beet.
Dr Mae-Wan Ho, a geneticist with the Open University, told the defending solicitor, Mr David Bulbulia that gene technology was in her view inherently unstable. Current regulations, she added, were based on "very dodgy law". The EPA had made a grave mistake in not allowing the technology to be calmly evaluated by way of oral hearing, said the Green MEP, Ms Nuala Ahern. She believed GM food was being allowed on to the Irish market when it was clinically untested.
