Skip Navigation | HOME | UK Indymedia | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

West Country Features | UK Features | West Country Newswire | UK Newswire |

SAINSBURY GM FEED CAMPAIGN: How you can help now

The GEN bod | 04.02.2005 22:04 | Bio-technology | Social Struggles | London

We're urgently seeking some last minute assistance in the ongoing saga of British GM animal feed imports. This is a short, easy action for everyone.

For those of you who haven't been following the activities of the 'Fair Price for GM Free Milk Coalition', the story in brief is that last year a group of independent farming unions and grassroots campaigners got together to try and target the use of GM animal feed in the UK. The idea was to start by encouraging Sainsbury's to keep its four year commitment to phase out GM feed.

The group used all the usual tricks, from farmers speaking from their tractor roofs outside stores, to the labelling of products, the leafleting of shoppers, the attending of Sainsbury's AGM and the running amok of various pantomime cows. The total of actions and demos is currently running at over 60 protests. Most spectacularly all five of Sainsbury's fresh food distribution depots were blockaded overnight and shut down for up to seven hours, at an estimated cost to the company of 3.7 million pounds.

A month after the blockade, and doubtless encouraged by Greenpeace's tandem anti-GM campaign against them, Sainsbury's announced that they would be trialling a range of non-GM fed milk. This is sold at five pence more than conventional milk and only in a limited selection of stores. Sainsbury's have made clear that its ethical policies will be based not on consumers stated beliefs about health or the environment but on what they actually pick off the shelf.

The Coalition wrote and asked to meet with Sainsbury's to start negotiating improvements. When the letter was ignored a selection of representatives from many of the signatory organizations visited the supermarkets headquarters in London. Security blocked them from entering and a push of door ensued, with besuited executives trying to hold back the rotating glass door on one side, and farmers in red boiler suits trying to swing it back the other way. The stand off ended in a two hour blockade of their main entrance, by the end of which the store had promised in writing to meet with the Coalition.

There have since been two meetings between the Coalition and Sainsbury's and more are promised. The negotiations are pretty unique. Not only has the campaign seen unprecedented solidarity and common ground emerging between farmers and activists, but those campaigners have then met directly with senior management to discuss their concerns about the firms policy. It's become clear that the Supermarket has had no direct communication with the farmers who supply its milk. They were unaware of the fact that many of their British producers work for far less than the minimum wage, and had never investigated whether their insurance covered the risks associated with GM animal feed. Their subsequent insistence that this information is commercially confidential seems to indicate that they don't have any cover for a product that neither they, or anyone else, has independent safety data on.

Whether they act on this new understanding is up to us now. The supermarket will be ending it's trial of the non-GM milk in mid February. They claim that since the labelling of the trial became clearer, and shoppers stopped picking up the range believing it to be the standard, that sales have fallen from 20% to 17%. However their conventional milk is not labelled as coming from GM-fed cows so their results have little meaning and may simply be used to justify ignoring consumer complaints. They will be undertaking their own surveying, but it's unlikely they'll be asking the really important questions. So we think it would be useful if we did. Attached is a five question survey to poll opinion amongst Sainsbury's shoppers. You simply ask them the questions, tick the responses and then get them to sign their section at the end. We need people to print off a dozen or so sheets, take them to their nearest Sainsburys and simply ask questions for an hour or so. Then put the completed surveys in an envelope and post them to:

Genetic Engineering Network,
PO Box 77,
TOTNES, Devon,
TQ9 5ZJ.

We need them back before the 14th of February if we're to hand them over to Sainsburys in bulk before they finalize any decision. If you'd like Coalition leaflets to hand out to interested shoppers as you do so then please ring 01803 840098 and we'll send some off.

Thanks loads for your help.

The GEN bod

Download this article in pdf format >>

Email this article to someone >>

Submit an addition or make a quick comment on this article >>

Comments

Display the following 4 comments

  1. Why Sainsburiy? — mutant
  2. Mooooo — Cow
  3. err — pasture
  4. for mutant — kernow boy

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal

West Country Topics

Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
Indymedia
Migration
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

West Country Actions 2007

West Country Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

West Country Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

West Country Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

West Country Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

Languages

english

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech