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Take the flour back

take the flour back | 10.06.2012 19:49 | Bio-technology | Ecology | Technology | World

On 27th May at Rothamsted, Harpenden, Hertsfordshire, more than 400 growers, bakers and families from across England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France and Belgium marched against the return of open air GM field testing. Take the Flour Back linked arms with their European counterparts, notably France’s Volunteer Reapers and walked calmly towards the field of GM wheat before being stopped by police lines.

From the newswire: European activists link up to draw the line against GM| Final details| Take the Flour Back defend Direct Action on Newsnight| Open letter to Rothamsted| What is food sovereignty| Pull up the GM wheat, or we will, say growers| Meet-up point announced| Callout

Photos|Video12

From SchNEWS: If we stay there will be stubble|One man assault on GM crop trial in Hertfordshire|Flour to the people

Links: Take the flour back



Kate Bell from Take the Flour Back stated that: “In the past, kids, grannies, and everyone in between has decontaminated GM trial sites together. Here at the beginning of a new resistance to this obsolete technology, we see GM hidden behind a fortress. We wanted to do the responsible thing and remove the threat of GM contamination, sadly it wasn’t possible to do that effectively today. However, we stand arm in arm with farmers and growers from around the world, who are prepared to risk their freedom to stop the imposition of GM crops.”

Gathuru Mburu, co-ordinator of the African Biodiversity Network, spoke on the global fight for control of our food supply. Mburu explained that: “Experimenting with staple crops is a serious threat to food security. Our resilience comes from diversity, not the monocultures of GM. Beneath the rhetoric that GM is the key to feeding a hungry world, there is a very different story – a story of control and profit. The fact is that we need a diversity of genetic traits in food crops in order to survive worsening climates. Above all, people need to have control over their seeds.”

Due to massive public opposition and resistance, GM crops have never been grown commercially in the UK. But field trials have started again, and once again we need to build a movement to defend our land and food.

take the flour back

Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

Obscurantism

17.06.2012 11:41

this is the same anti-scientific nonsense, obscurantism, that led to turks rioting in the 18th century and burning down an observatory because they blamed it for a plague that was devastating the local area.

Fucking peasants

David


Educate yourself

18.06.2012 11:21

Please educate yourself on the GM/organic issue before posting your ignorant comments online.
It's not obscurantism, if anything the GM companies are the ones doing the obscuring. Ever notice anything that said 'contains GM ingredients'? Neither have I.

Do some research. Here's a start

 http://www.foe.co.uk/groups/cheltenham/535.htm

 http://www.gmfreeze.org/

Jeremy


frustrating

22.06.2012 14:26

I seemed to be the only incredibly frustrated person that day. After 6 months of people planning this action, protestors sat down in a line and sang songs. I want to know why this was planned and promoted as a day of action ((it's even in the title!) when at the first sign of cops (not even aggressively riot-prepared cops) everyone immediately gave up and sat down. Some protesters even complained when a tiny number of activists had to push past them to get through the first line of cops! What started out promisingly, with large numbers present, got hijacked by a self-proclaimed 'non-violent' group that almost everyone followed like sheep. A small group of us easily got past the cops and even found a route that others could take safely, but no, people preferred to stay on their arses and sing songs. We had enough numbers that day, to be able to occupy the cops enough to enable a few to get through and actually wreck this crop trial.

I would have swallowed my disappointment and kept quiet about this, if it hadn't been highlighted as an important action here.

Shh..


clever

23.06.2012 09:23

"A small group of us easily got past the cops and even found a route that others could take safely, but no, people preferred to stay on their arses and sing songs"

Lol! Excellent!
Your arrogance is only outdone by your stupidity. Perhaps - they didn't want to get past the cops into the crops. Perhaps they WANTED to sit on their arses and sing songs.

In short: Perhaps they didn't want to do what you wanted them to do.

lightbulb moment


frustrating

23.06.2012 22:56

yes I agree, it was a very frustrating day. I think a lot of people where charged up and ready to go the whole way but the last speaker said that we should walk up to the line and stop. Most people stopped at the line because of what was said and because they expected everyone else to do the same. I am as much to blame as anyone, I might have gone for it if everyone else had.... yes i realise the irony in that, but that's the way it was.

woodstring


frustrated too, but...

24.06.2012 00:53

So, for info on GM, best is to go to stopgm.org.uk

I think the situation was confused by an injunction against named individuals that would in theory make them responsible for others' actions, by a bunch of French anti-GM people who though that was the best thing to do and quickly formed up to make the front rows, not giving others time to form up, etc, and also as you said, some of the speakers at the end.

It was advertised as a day of action, and that was what was intended. (lightbulb moment - you're talking bollocks)

I was frustrated, but we also have to face the reality (as caught up on TV later) that past that line of cops were FUCK loads more, cops on horses, on quad bikes, cameras up cherry-pickers, security, big fat anti-cut fence etc etc. In other words, NO FUCKING CHANCE to get through to the crop.

I'm afraid I have my doubts about your 'safe route'. I do know that a couple of people got nicked for entering the marked applied for 'trespassory assembly' zone. If you want to do something useful, go to the guides at  https://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/resources#GMtrash

anti-GM


true, more cops behind

26.06.2012 07:57

I agree that people have the right to sit down and sing, I even (reluctantly) agree that people have the right to spin poi at a safe distance, it's only when the sitters obstruct others and influence the plans of the majority that I object.
As to the extra cops behind, the writer is correct - there WERE plenty more of them, but since when has that not been the case? I never assumed we'd all get on site and I'm not arrogant enough to think I'd have achieved that myself, but at least I and many others I spoke to beforehand, were up for trying hard and keeping enough of them busy to enable those who could, to get inside.
As I said, I'm trying to be philosophical that was just the way things turned out and wouldn't have bothered commenting except that I want new activists to know this isn't the way every effing protest has to end up.

Shh...


hang on a minute

30.06.2012 11:45

"I agree that people have the right to sit down and sing, I even (reluctantly) agree that people have the right to spin poi at a safe distance, it's only when the sitters obstruct others and influence the plans of the majority that I object."


The singers have a right to obstruct in the same way you do.
If i wanted to protest about your planned wrecking of the field, that would be my right.

hypocrasy


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