Print

hustings time:
1. MEET YOUR NORFOLK CANDIDATES!
2. Charlotte enlivens C5 (no small achievement)
3. 'All organic farms at risk' say Greens
---

MEET YOUR NORFOLK CANDIDATES!
from Nicole Cook:

The Federation of Small Businesses have organised meetings for the public with all the respective palimentary candidates in the following areas.
29th May Park Hotel Diss
30th May Novohotel Greyfrairs Ipswich
31st May Angel Hotel Bury St Edmunds
1st June Hilton Hotel Cromer Road Norwich
4th June Knight Hill Hotel South Wooten Kingslynn.

All the meetings start at 7:30 pm, refreshments provided.

This is a wonderful and rare opportunity to raise our concerns for the future of agriculture. let's try and have a strong presence at all the Norfolk  meetings as I am sure the local press will be reporting.

Please can you let me know if you will be attending any of these sessions, so  I can work on filling any gaps in our coverage!

Thanks
Nicole: 01379 651902 07769 838769
---

Charlotte enlivens C5

Charlotte Philcox was on a Channel 5 election programme last night and described what happened when Blair came to the John Innes Centre (and avoided talking about GM crops - a bit like going to NASA and avoiding reference to space travel!), and mentioned Brian Baxter trying to see the PM, and that the government was not listening to the public at all. Charlotte also mentioned the millions being put into gene tech, whereas the govt was not supporting organics. The presenter asked if she felt it was right for people to take the law into their own hands (ie crop protestors) to which she replied "absolutely!" since it was the only way now to be heard. There was repeated applause from members of the audience.
---

'All organic farms at risk' say Greens
Norfolk Green Party Press release
contact: Ingo Norfolk press officer, tel.01508538197
Adrian Ramsay, tel. 01603507792, spokesperson
James Abbott tel. 01376584576, regional press officer
23.05.2001

Today the green Party of Norfolk is calling upon Michael Meacher MP and Nick Brown to offer some hope to farmers who are hit hardest by the F&M disease.  Those who lost their livestock and have not farmed with the use of chemicals for years, should be considered as a priority to convert to organic, if they so wish.

Demand for organic food in this country is rising fast and we must be able to grow most of it ourselves.  At present less than 1% is grown here and many foods are imported, thousands of miles, accruing environmental damage on the way to our plates.  The Green Party wants to reverse that trend,  by 2010 we would produce 30% of organic ourselves, loosing some 50 % of our pesticide needs by 2005 in the process. It is vital that the genuine reasons that stopped the Ryton trials are applied to all other organic farms in an equally near vicinity to other GM trials ( 36 ) in England and Wales.

"If contamination is at issue and stopped trials at HDRA Ryton, it is a fact at all the other trials near organic farms and liability must be guaranteed for all harm caused.," says Ingo Wagenknecht,  Green Party candidate for the Norfolk County council  elections and a 'healthy and safe food' campaigner, he added:

" The Green Party is asking the Government to stop all trials in this country now, industry and this Government can not bully the competition out of existence by deliberately deleting/contaminating the genetic blueprint of organic plants,  consumer don't want it to happen and scientists are adament that the use of bacteria and viruses in recombenant DNA research is dangerous to us, the risk's of creating new toxins and allergies are great. It is unruly of a Governments entourage, to push organic farmers aside, they have a legitamit worry of loosing their livelyhood and a right to say so."

End

for further information or interviews, please contact as above.

---

"Ms McDonagh's* claim that the safety of politicians on the stump was endangered by too-close contact with the electorate led one inexorably to the Ceausescu model of people-management - speak to them only from a great height - balconies, preferably." - Anne McElvoy writing in The Independent, MAY 23 2001

* general secretary of the Labour Party

'Topics banished to the back of the manifestos,  such as genetic research, conservation, animal welfare and poverty, appear to be those engaging growing numbers of the public. And, as our survey clearly demonstrates, these are matters embraced not just by the young, educated  middle classes. It is the older age groups who are most concerned about the plight of the countryside, while GM foods concern the lower socio-economic sections of society as much as the ABC1s.' The Scotsman, May 15, 2001 ...PEOPLE FRET OVER GLOBAL ISSUES