Farmers Uproots Bt CORN Crops, Urged Congress' Intervention on Illegal Field Testing of GMOs
KMP NEWS RELEASE
August 30, 2001
Reference: RAFAEL MARIANO, KMP Chairperson
In a press conference today in Quezon City, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) urged Congress to intervene on the on-going illegal field trials of the Bt-corn conducted by Monsanto. The group also demanded for appropriate actions and punishment to all those responsible for such and a complete halt in the entry of GMOs in the country, stating its immense threat to food security, the people's sovereignty, the environment and human health. Also present in the press conference were representatives from Masipag, SEARICE and CBCP Vice-chair Dinualdo Guttierez.
Only yesterday, August 29, more than 800 farmers, church people and students staged a surprise attack on Monsanto Agro-corporation field testing site in South Cotabato and uprooted with their bare hands Bt corn (Bacillus thuringiensis) crops that were about to blossom and start contaminating.
The farmers gathered in Marbel, South Cotabato and marched toward Barangay Maltana, Tampacan town and uprooted Bt corn crops covering about * hectares in protest of the on-going field trials.
KMP chair Rafael Mariano said that "the uprooting of Bt corn in Mindanao serves a strong political message to greedy agro-chem TNCs like Monsanto and the Macapagal-Arroyo government which sanctioned field trials of Bt corn in particular and GMOs release into environment in general."
These illegal field testings pushed through without approval from appropriate approving authority and despite oppositions from farmers, church leaders and local government officials of the provinces..
"The National Committee on Biosafety of the Philippines (NCBP) illegally approved the country's first-ever multi-location field testing which includes the planting and harvesting of Bt corn in over ten sites which include the provinces of Isabela, Bukidnon, Camarines Sur, South Cotabato, and Pangasinan. The NCBP do not have the mandate to approve such testing applications and should be held liable for their illegal acts," Mariano added.
"We will not be surprised if farmers in these multi-location field testing areas are inspired by the uprooting of the Bt-corn in Mindanao and launch similar direct actions because it is a just and legitimate act," Mariano stressed.
The KMP also assailed the current government's "Free Enterprise System for the 21st Century" and KALAHI program as a sham. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's thrust to liberalize agricultural trade and to modernize agriculture and fishery under the framework of the "free market globalization" dictated by World Trade Organization (WTO) and its Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) that led to the further disempowerment of poor farmers and subjected them to increasing exploitation, poverty, hunger and landlessness. The government's programs and policies serve the transnational agro-corporation's interests and long-debunked argument that transgenic crops such as the Bt corn is the solution to a "world food crisis."
KMP said that the Macapagal-Arroyo government's firm adherence to the dictates of the AoA-GATT/WTO will further put the country's negative agricultural trade balance.
"Five years after the approval of the AoA-GATT/WTO, the country has incurred an agricultural trade deficit of $3.5 Billion. The people are hungry because they cannot buy food and dependence on imported food, emphasis on export production and increasing monopoly control by TNCs and landlords is putting the food security and sovereignty of the people in peril," KMP's Mariano said. # # #
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