GM Nation?
Genie | 03.06.2003 09:33 | Bio-technology | Ecology
'GM Nation?', the governments so-called public debate on GM food, is being launched today (3rd June).
You probably haven't heard much about this because the government hasn't put aside much money for this exercise and probably doesn't actually want you to get involved...
You probably haven't heard much about this because the government hasn't put aside much money for this exercise and probably doesn't actually want you to get involved...
During the months of June and July there will be a Government sponsored national debate on GM food and crops called "GM Nation?". Many groups have criticised the way the debate has been organised.
They are concerned about a lack of money, time and any real commitment by the Government to take account of the results in its decisions about the growing of crops in the UK.
You can learn more about the development of the debate by going to;
www.genewatch.org/debate/debate.html
Despite, concerns many groups such as the Five Year Freeze, National Federation of Women's Institutes and GeneWatch UK are encouraging people to take part in the debate. If few people take part, then the Government, when making its decision about GM crops in the UK later this year, will be able to say the UK public no longer really cares about GM. The concerns raised by the public over the last five years will then be ignored.
How to take part
GM Nation?', will consist of a series of meetings on a regional and local level. Each meeting will be provided with a toolkit consisting of a video, a CD-ROM and a workbook containing a feedback form where each individual will be able to express their views on both GM and on the process of 'GM Nation?' itself. GeneWatch therefore feels that it is very important that people try to become involved in the process and this can be done in a number of ways:
1. Attend one of the regional meetings taking place from the 3rd -13th June:
- 3rd June: NEC, Birmingham
- 5th June: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea
- 7th June: Holiday Inn, Taunton
(Phone 01803 840098 to get involved in a colourful demo at the taunton event)
- 9th June: Kings Hall, Belfast
- 11th June: Quality Hotel, Glasgow
- 13th June: Pavilions, Harrogate (Yorkshire Showground)
To book tickets and for more information about the debate contact Lee Hancock at the Central Office of Information (COI), on 020 7261 8528.
2. Find out where local meetings are taking place in your area and attend them. GeneWatch has asked the Central Office of Information (COI) to place a list of local meetings on its public debate website at www.gmpublicdebate.org. However, if they don't do this or you don't have access to the Internet, you can ring Lee Hancock as above.
3. Organise your own 'GM Nation?' meeting. If you are part of a group with an interest in GM (e.g. a local community group or the Women's Institute) then you can organise a meeting as that group. However, you can also organise a meeting as an interested individual. The COI will provide anyone organising a meeting with a toolkit containing a video, CD-ROM and a workbook for each person attending the meeting. The toolkit is intended to act as stimulus material for discussion in the meetings. The workbook will also contain the feedback form and this will be your opportunity to express directly how you feel about both GM and about the process of 'GM Nation?'. The COI have said that they may be able to help people with the publicity and organisation of local meetings. The meetings should be organised for after the launch date of 3rd June and before the end of July. Again, ring Lee Hancock as above.
4. If you can't attend or organise a meeting, you will be able to use the public debate website. At the moment, we understand that the website will contain stimulus material similar to that on the CD-ROM and that there will be an opportunity to fill in the feedback form.
www.gmpublicdebate.org
Other things to do.....
1. This is a good time to organise other events and distribute leaflets and other information about GM crops and food. GeneWatch has a series of short issue papers as well as longer briefings and reports that we can send you.
www.genewatch.org or ring 01298 871898
2. Friends of the Earth are trying to get each Council in Britain to declare itself a GM-Free Zone. To get involved in their campaign
www.foe.co.uk or ring 0113 2428153
3. Many people would prefer to buy animal products such as meat, eggs and cheese from animals that had not been raised on GM feed. Many supermarkets promised customers they would meet these wishes, but some have failed to do so and may back down from those promises. Greenpeace are trying to stop that happening and if you want to help, contact them on
info@uk.greenpeace.org or ring 020 7865 8100.
4. Raise your concerns with your MP - it's easy to fax them via
www.faxyourmp.com
5. Write to the Ministers, Margaret Beckett and Michael Meacher, and to the Prime Minister. If you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, write to members of those devolved administrations.
6. Let your food retailers know your views on GM foods.
7. Call radio phone-in sessions and write to local and national newspapers.
They are concerned about a lack of money, time and any real commitment by the Government to take account of the results in its decisions about the growing of crops in the UK.
You can learn more about the development of the debate by going to;
www.genewatch.org/debate/debate.html
Despite, concerns many groups such as the Five Year Freeze, National Federation of Women's Institutes and GeneWatch UK are encouraging people to take part in the debate. If few people take part, then the Government, when making its decision about GM crops in the UK later this year, will be able to say the UK public no longer really cares about GM. The concerns raised by the public over the last five years will then be ignored.
How to take part
GM Nation?', will consist of a series of meetings on a regional and local level. Each meeting will be provided with a toolkit consisting of a video, a CD-ROM and a workbook containing a feedback form where each individual will be able to express their views on both GM and on the process of 'GM Nation?' itself. GeneWatch therefore feels that it is very important that people try to become involved in the process and this can be done in a number of ways:
1. Attend one of the regional meetings taking place from the 3rd -13th June:
- 3rd June: NEC, Birmingham
- 5th June: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea
- 7th June: Holiday Inn, Taunton
(Phone 01803 840098 to get involved in a colourful demo at the taunton event)
- 9th June: Kings Hall, Belfast
- 11th June: Quality Hotel, Glasgow
- 13th June: Pavilions, Harrogate (Yorkshire Showground)
To book tickets and for more information about the debate contact Lee Hancock at the Central Office of Information (COI), on 020 7261 8528.
2. Find out where local meetings are taking place in your area and attend them. GeneWatch has asked the Central Office of Information (COI) to place a list of local meetings on its public debate website at www.gmpublicdebate.org. However, if they don't do this or you don't have access to the Internet, you can ring Lee Hancock as above.
3. Organise your own 'GM Nation?' meeting. If you are part of a group with an interest in GM (e.g. a local community group or the Women's Institute) then you can organise a meeting as that group. However, you can also organise a meeting as an interested individual. The COI will provide anyone organising a meeting with a toolkit containing a video, CD-ROM and a workbook for each person attending the meeting. The toolkit is intended to act as stimulus material for discussion in the meetings. The workbook will also contain the feedback form and this will be your opportunity to express directly how you feel about both GM and about the process of 'GM Nation?'. The COI have said that they may be able to help people with the publicity and organisation of local meetings. The meetings should be organised for after the launch date of 3rd June and before the end of July. Again, ring Lee Hancock as above.
4. If you can't attend or organise a meeting, you will be able to use the public debate website. At the moment, we understand that the website will contain stimulus material similar to that on the CD-ROM and that there will be an opportunity to fill in the feedback form.
www.gmpublicdebate.org
Other things to do.....
1. This is a good time to organise other events and distribute leaflets and other information about GM crops and food. GeneWatch has a series of short issue papers as well as longer briefings and reports that we can send you.
www.genewatch.org or ring 01298 871898
2. Friends of the Earth are trying to get each Council in Britain to declare itself a GM-Free Zone. To get involved in their campaign
www.foe.co.uk or ring 0113 2428153
3. Many people would prefer to buy animal products such as meat, eggs and cheese from animals that had not been raised on GM feed. Many supermarkets promised customers they would meet these wishes, but some have failed to do so and may back down from those promises. Greenpeace are trying to stop that happening and if you want to help, contact them on
info@uk.greenpeace.org or ring 020 7865 8100. 4. Raise your concerns with your MP - it's easy to fax them via
www.faxyourmp.com
5. Write to the Ministers, Margaret Beckett and Michael Meacher, and to the Prime Minister. If you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, write to members of those devolved administrations.
6. Let your food retailers know your views on GM foods.
7. Call radio phone-in sessions and write to local and national newspapers.
Genie
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
Monsanto/Aventis KILLS!
03.06.2003 11:13
Any gene can be isolated and added to altered seeds.
Would a man like Hitler not have used this technology surreptitiously for eugenics and thinning out "undesirables?"
Bush is a man like Hitler and Blair is a wannabe dictator.
So how can you trust governments who scatter D.U. over whole regions, to be concerned about human health, contamination or environmental impact?
Bearing in mind AIDS was a laboratory-engineered illness, designed to wipe out certain ethnic groups, how could the introduction of GM to Africa be anything other than more attempted genocide?
Pioneer
Why GM is so dangerous
03.06.2003 12:18
Cleo
GM Nation Debate Vetting
03.06.2003 17:45
One woman with a place asked if she could take another person along. A series of questions followed, and this 2nd woman was allowed because of being a relative.
Other people have telephoned and been told, after answering some questions (who are you, where do you live, what is your interest etc) they will not be allowed in!
Does anyone have any other experience of this, either at Swansea or any other venue?
Methinks it shows how the 'debate/consultation' will go!
Fustis
Birmingham 'debate'
03.06.2003 22:06
(3rd June NEC) - here are some of our observations....
There was a film which was shown BEFORE the 'advertised' start time. A copy of this video is apparently available from the Central Office of Information, on 020 7261 8528.
You were meant to have been sent 'a pack' to read in advance but most people had not.
There was a brief intro about how the debate is meant to work and then we went into discusion groups. The room was laid out with about a dozen tables with ten seats to each.
There were three 25min discusions followed by a feedback/quations session.
Handouts had been provided to prompt the discusions...
1.a) Is altering genetic make up safe?
.b) What benefits might GM bring?
.c) Will GM help feed the world?
.d) Can we cope with any GM problems?
2.a) Do current GM foods cause health problems?
b) Is GM food safe to eat?
c) Does GM increse or rescrict choice?
d) Does GM mean fewer pesticides?
3.GM future implications
a) "We should allow people to grow GM crops because
it allows farmers greater freedom of choice
without reducing the choices of others"
b) "There is no need to lable GM food because there
are no know side effects to date."
There were no 'official' facilitators on each table, instead we were asked to choose one person to take the role. There was a notepad on each table which the facilitators were meant to take notes about what was being expressed during discussion. This notes would be passed on to the people anaylsing the 'debate'. This system proved to be crap and is open for abuse. Facilitors in many groups were incapable of taking acurate notes that truely reflected the range of discussion and if people wanted to, they could have voluntered to be facilitator and then added their own bias to what ever degree they liked during note taking. There should have been trained and unbiased facilitators.
It wasn't a proper debate at all, it was done in the style of workshop sessions. We were told over and over again that the debate was to find out what our views are. Some people felt that it was more about helping the government and bio-tech companies plan and design their future PR and propagander. Many people seemed to think the desicion about commerciallising GM crops has already been taken.
There wasn't a real cross section of society. Those who were there obviously had an interest in the subject and were motivated to find out about the debate and turn up. Someone asked for everyone who wasn't part of an organisation (and therefore apparently a 'genuine' member of the public) to put their hands up and only about half at most put their hand up.
Everyone there was practically white even though it was in Birmingham. Many of those attending had come from outside the region. There were bio-tech employes and scientist present and at least one pro GM farmer who had been contacted and asked to attend. Preferential treatment, or a misguided attempt at balance?
At the end people were asked to fill in a survey (which is also available online). The questions are very closed minded and leaves no scope for many major issues to be considered. The questions are multiple choice and biased in their conception.
It is difficult to excape the conclusion that either the people running this consultation are incompetent or that there is no real interest in what the public really think.
However, please do get involved. We must no let the government spin this 'debate' as a legitimation of their policy on GM crops.
----
Note: The official GM 'debate' website is shit. They don't even provide information about when the meeting are taking place! (see
However, various NGO websites do provide this info
- regional meetings are taking place from 3rd-13th June:
- 5th June: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea
- 7th June: Holiday Inn, Taunton
- 9th June: Kings Hall, Belfast
- 11th June: Quality Hotel, Glasgow
- 13th June: Pavilions, Harrogate (Yorkshire Showground)
To book tickets contact Lee Hancock at the Central Office of Information, on 020 7261 8528 / 0207 261 8618 (email:
>>>> YOU CAN SEND YOUR VIEWS ONLINE >>>>
Visit
It would probably be a good idea to express your views here even if you think that the 'debate' is a farce or that the decision has already been made by the Blair government.
<<<< GET YOUR VIEWS IN BEFORE 18th JULY! <<<<
Ben
Homepage:
http://www.gmnation.org.uk