Protesters yesterday took to the streets in Taipei in support of the international campaign March Against Monsanto, calling on the government to maintain strict regulations on genetically modified organisms (GMO) in foods.
GMO foods will be a critical issue in negotiations on agricultural trade between Taiwan and the US to be held in September, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator said.
The first, US-based, March Against Monsanto in 2013 garnered support from more than 2 million protesters worldwide who protested against the US biotechnological multinational, which produces genetically modified plant species and herbicides.
Tami Canal, the initiator of the movement, has been campaigning to promote organic food production and for the labeling of products containing GMO ingredients.
The Homemakers United Foundation joined the movement yesterday to lead the march, which ended at the Water Garden Organic Farmers’ Market.
“GM foods and 80 percent of the herbicides [used by local farmers] pose health risks,” said Warren Kuo (郭華仁), a professor at National Taiwan University’s Department of Agronomy, adding that Monsanto’s and the US government’s support of GMO foods was scientifically untenable.
Since 2008, Kuo has been working with the foundation, the Green Formosa Front and a few lawmakers to call for regulation of GMO foods.
Their efforts were rewarded in 2015, when the government amended the School Health Act (學校衛生法) to keep genetically modified and heavily processed foods from reaching educational institutions.
Kuo said the government must not bow to pressure from the US, who he said has called for abolishing the ban on GMO foods in schools under the pretext that it constitutes a barrier to trade.
“As long as the US can offer quality soy beans at a reasonable price, we are willing to purchase them. There is no such thing as a trade barrier,” he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said the government would likely be pressured on the issue of GMO foods and meat products containing ractopamine during the negotiations in September, adding that people should work together to let the US know Taiwanese do not want these things, and that she would raise the issues again in the Legislative Yuan on May 31.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
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