MONSANTO AND OTHER GENE GIANTS ARE TRYING TO GAIN CONTROL OF THE WORLD AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY, INCLUDING P.E.I.'S, CITY MEETING TOLD.
Charlottetown Guardian | February 18, 2000 | Ron Ryder
Tony Clarke, vice-chair of the Council of Canadians, was cited as telling a crowd of 40 in a meeting aimed at raising awareness of the World Trade Organization and at testing the waters for active council chapters on the Island that a very concrete example of that corporate might is growing in the Island's potato fields.
Clarke said the thousands of protesters whose marches shut down the Seattle negotiations are an expression of what he hopes is a new awareness of the dangers imposed by global corporate rule, adding, "We are living in a world where 52 of the top 100 economies in the world are individual trans-national corporations. There is an amazing concentration of wealth and capital in the world. What these bodies of rule amount to is a constitution for a global economy. The rules are being made and have been made by corporations themselves."
Jennifer Story, the council's health campaign coordinator, was cited as saying big name agribusinesses like Monsanto are pressing to have restrictions on genetically altered crops banned under trade law at the same time as they are seeking property rights for newly developed seed stocks, adding, "Monsanto and the gene giants, as some of these companies have been called, are trying their best to make sure they take over ownership of the stuff of agriculture. The companies are here right now, meeting over at the potato convention where they are no doubt working hard at peddling their genetically engineered potato products."
Story said with government and business working in close proximity on the genetically-modfied crops, the most effective way of stopping them is to put pressure on stores not to carry these potatoes and to insist as consumers on not buying engineered produce.
"These are proven methods, they've worked in other parts of the world," she said.
