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Controversy
over Biotech Food Hits Downtown Chicago Food Conference: |
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Chicago—Protests over controversial genetically engineered foods hit Chicago on the opening day of the 12th World Congress of Food Science and Technology held downtown. Street demonstrators, including local groups, Genewise and EarthSave, and the national group, Friends of the Earth, joined local parents and students outside the Hilton Chicago conference location to call attention to the threats posed by genetically engineered food. The theme of the World Food Congress, which will attract up to 20,000 attendees, is “Feeding the World: Opportunities without Boundaries.” Biotech company representatives will be promoting genetically engineered foods to solve world hunger. Demonstrators drew attention to hunger relief experts’ concerns that biotechnology will actually make hunger around the world worse, not better, and that biotech companies are using famine as a marketing tool. Protesters with posters, banners, and costumes depicted food companies, consumers, farmers and biotech companies such as Monsanto enslaving the World Food Congress “goddess of plenty.” The goddess is featured on the World Food Congress website - http://www.worldfoodscience.org/worldcongress/. Protesters held signs that read: “World Food Con: Biotech makes hunger worse, not better.” “From consumers, to farmers, to food companies like Chicago’s hometown food company, Kraft, biotech food has made us all victims,” said Christine Phillips of local Chicago food safety group Genewise. “We shouldn’t repeat the same mistake by pinning our hopes of solving world hunger on an unproven technology that poses huge risks to our health and environment.” A demonstrator dressed as Kraft Foods (KFT) CEO Betsy Holden was chained to a biotech corporate villain wearing a sign that read, “Biotech Cost Me Millions.” These millions represent what Kraft and the food industry has paid for legal settlements and recalls due to past biotech blunders, namely StarLink corn. The U.S. government's own assessment is that current biotech corn varieties would not perform well in Africa, one of the areas of the world facing the greatest threat of hunger. U.S. State Department notes on its development agency web site that genetically engineered corn sent to Africa as food aid "would be expected to perform poorly in African growing conditions" and is "not well suited for planting." According to the World Health Organization, "Hunger is a question of mal-distribution and inequality - not lack of food." “Biotech companies are misleading the world, not feeding the world,” said Larry Bohlen, director of Health and Environment Programs at Friends of the Earth-U.S. ”They are promoting their crops instead of solutions to hunger that cost less and are actually proven to work in areas suffering from famine.” Even former biotech officials are rejecting the idea that biotech will solve world hunger. According to Steve Smith, former head of Novartis Seeds, a biotech company, "If anyone tells you that GM [Genetic modification] is going to feed the world, tell them that it is not . . .To feed the world takes political and financial will – it’s not about production and distribution." Contacts:
Larry Bohlen, Friends of the Earth, 202-270-1547; Chrisine Philips,
Genewise, 773-793-9143. Genewise is a Chicago group dedicated to resisting genetic engineering and promoting safe, sustainable, locally produced food. www.genewise.org
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