(copied from bimc)

In 1999 the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reps from every African nation jointly condemned Monsanto's efforts to force GM on Africa. Monsanto urgently called on PR company Burston Marsteller to tackle the crisis. The advice to the whole industry was never to admit that African farmers and leaders opposed GM and to pretend that all the opposition originated from white, middle class Europeans - specifically Greenpeace - who were happy for African babies to die in the interest of their extremist ideology. The biotech industry and their allies have since then blamed every anti-GM protest in Africa and every protest by peasant farmers on Greenpeace. Sainsbury's are now pretending that the joint farmer and activist blockade of their depots was arranged by Greenpeace - see emailed statement below. Greenpeace seem impressed by the action but have had to tell dozens of journalists who called them that this was completely independent from them.

> From: Parveen Johal [mailto:Parveen.Johal (at) sainsburys.co.uk]
> Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 2:06 PM
> Subject: Statement
>
> We're disappointed that Greenpeace has chosen to target us when this is
> clearly an industry issue. Overall all of our depots have responded very
> well in ensuring minimum disruption to service. Our milk does not contain
> GM ingredients. Milk is highly regulated and like all supermarkets, we are
> subject to stringent food safety controls. Our milk is sourced from
> British dairy farms that supply other UK supermarkets, like Tesco and Asda
> - as well as hotels, schools and hospitals. The Food Standards Agency has
> categorically stated that there is no evidence that milk from animals fed
> on GM crops contains any GM material.
>
> To offer choice to our customers, we have launched a new milk from cows
> fed on non-GM feed which is now in over 100 stores.