Ireland’s reputation as a GM-free food producer should be protected

Africa once had a bedazzling tree; from its branches hung battered fruit.

Yet as people came to pick from the fritter tree, slave hunters would leap from hiding.

The bedazzling fruit was a decoy.

And today Ireland is being asked to test-grow genetically modified potatoes.

While it is easy to be dazzled bytechnology, are there hidden risks to GM foods?

Irish aid workers report secret deals between governments and global seed companies who now control 90% of the world’s grain supply; many GM seeds are designed to lose potency after a single planting season, forcing farmers to buy their seeds from multinationals each year.

But what of Ireland itself?

In 1847 my people, the Choctaw, raised from “meagre resources” food money for the victims of Ireland’s Great Famine. A potato blight and outside control of the rest of Ireland’s food supply had resulted in mass starvation. Thankfully, there is now robust biodiversity in Ireland, which includes blight-resistant potatoes.

Ireland is one of the few countries that has no GM crops. There doesn’t appear to be a need for them.

Unlike natural agricultural breeding methods, genetic food modification either deletes genes or inserts them, often from other species. Critical GM food safety issues now being reported include damage to human health and ecosystems through gene-flow contamination.

Other risks arise from a profound lack of biodiversity; a highly vulnerable dependency on the single planting season potency of GM seeds, as yet untested by new diseases.

I strongly support the Afri submission to the EPA requesting that Ireland’s economically enviable reputation as a clean, green, GM-free food producer be protected.

The Choctaw who sent food to Famine Ireland would also strongly warn against letting a GM fritter tree cast a single root into Irish soil.

For such a tree bears false fruit; and an all too familiar control.

Waylon (Gary)

White Deer

Kimmage

Dublin 12