World Summit on Sustainable Development Department of Public Information - News and Media Services Division - New York
	Johannesburg, South Africa 26 August-4 September 2002	29 August 2002

PRESS CONFERENCE BY NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS ON GENETICALLY ENGINEERED COMMODITIES   It was impossible to determine whether genetically modified plants could contribute to sustainable agriculture in the absence of a high level of scientific knowledge and technology to carry out credible risk assessments, a genetic engineer said at a non-governmental organization press conference this afternoon. Terje Traavik, Director of the Norwegian Institute for Gene Ecology, stressed that neither the potential and probability of risk, nor the consequences of using the first generation of genetically modified plants were known. They had been put on the market much too early, he added. The press conference, with the theme "Who Will Feed the World in the 21st Century? Farmers Growing Food Sustainably or Corporations Supplying GE Commodities?" heard Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser describe how a judge had awarded his entire canola crop to the Monsanto corporation after the company's genetically modified seeds had contaminated his farm. Noting that the judge had made the ruling in accordance with national patent rights, he said they gave multinational corporations control over the rights of small farmers. Lucy Mulenkei, Director of Kenya's Indigenous Information Network, said that international conferences failed to recognize women, particularly those from poor countries, as the most important people when it came to feeding the world. Despite owning no land, women in Africa had been able to feed their families by using indigenous knowledge passed from one generation to the next. The use of genetically modified seeds would kill traditional agriculture. The vast amounts of money used to genetically modify plants would be better spent on helping women to maximize their traditional knowledge in sustaining their families. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz Ex-Director of the Tetebba Foundation in the Philippines, referring to the conflict between small-scale and large-scale agriculture, recalled a conference on indigenous rights held in Kimberley, South Africa. Describing the plight of the Khoisan, the indigenous people of southern Africa, she said that in Griqualand they had no rights to even a single acre of land. Pat Mooney, Executive Director of the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC), referring to the United States, emphasized the importance of making a distinction between stakeholders in agriculture, who needed the food, and the stake eaters, comprising the Government and the biotechnological industry.   Press Conferences Summit News