Slow Food home | About us | Foundation | Editore | Sloweb | Press Office | Store     Sloweb     Home | Sloweek | Voices from the Slow world | Slow Talk | News | Watch & Listen             FOCUS ON TERRA MADRE 2008 / SALONE DEL GUSTO: Fighting the War Against GMOs 26 Oct 08 - News da Terra Madre What are GMOs for? What can be done to give consumers, communities and countries the free choice to decide for themselves whether or not they want to cultivate and eat GMO crops? These were the questions debated today at the Salone del Gusto, in a conference held together with Terra Madre. The panel discussion was moderated by Roberto Burdese. Slow Food Italy’s president, he was speaking today as the coordinator of the GMO-Free Italy-Europe Coalition which brings together 32 organizations representing 10 million people. The case against GMOs was forcefully put by geneticist Marcello Buiatti, a professor at the University of Florence. “From a scientific point of view GMOs are a total failure,” he stated. GMOs use out-dated technology, do not increase production of useful food crops, do not help fight famine and do not do what their patents claim. They are a symbol of what he termed the “wicked economy,” based on the exchange of money instead of material products. In his view GMOs serve only to make their owners rich as farmers have to pay royalties to the multinationals to use their seeds. Specific examples of the failure of GMOs to help solve problems of poverty, hunger and environmental destruction came from Mexico and Kenya. Raúl Hernández Garciadiego explained the need to rediscover ancient crops and restore the water table through traditional irrigation techniques in the mountainous Mexican region of Tehuacán. Samuel Karanja Muhunyu described some of the past “goofs” of the scientific and political community in Kenya which have led to, among other environmental disasters, the complete loss of biodiversity in Lake Victoria. “We need participatory development involving communities,” he said, lamenting the African habit of copying Western lifestyles, including food cultures, and imposing laboratory-developed solutions to solve food crises, when the answers lie in the traditions of rural small-scale farmers. Finally two European politicians, Joseph Stockinger from Austria and Marie-Hélène Aubert from France, described the work of the European GMO-Free Regions Network and its efforts to get legal recognition from the European Union so that regions can be implement their own decisions about GMOs. Carla Ranicki   News archive from Terramadre News archive from Slowfood Foundation for Biodiversity News archive from University of Gastronomic Sciences News archive from Watch & Listen           News     United States - 01 Sep 10     Eataly in New York     The philosophy and campaigns promoted by Slow Food over the past twenty years to strengthen regional, tasty and sustainable food, and reconnect consumers with the origin of their food, have...           News archive     Brazil - 17 Aug 10     Gastromotiva     Terra Madre chef and Slow Food convivium empower disadvantaged youth to enter culinary careers ...     Russia - 16 Aug 10     Biodiversity Hangs in the Balance     Slow Food joins the protest against destruction of Europe’s largest repository of rare fruit ...     United Kingdom - 13 Aug 10     Food Justice     Slow Food UK praises social justice report’s call for action ...     Philippines - 10 Aug 10     Against the Grain     The Indigenous Taguibong people in the Philippines continue to practice the traditional rice threshing and milling methods of their ancestors ...     Georgia - 05 Aug 10     Meeting in the Birthplace of the Vine     First Terra Madre Georgia held with a focus on wine and small producers ...     Italy - 03 Aug 10     Strengthening the Indigenous Voice     Slow Food enters into a partnership to advocate for indigenous groups around the world ...     Archive previous news   Slow Food 2010 - All rights reserved - P.iva 91008360041 - Powered by Blulab