ENVIRONMENTALIST group Green Alert Negros (GAN) Friday urged the Provincial Government of Negros Occidental “to apply the precautionary principle” which according to them are “standards and a normal part of everyday life”.

“When the prospect of harm is large and the uncertainty is great, our ability to predict the future is limited so we take a precautionary approach,” said Mark Cervantes, GAN coordinator.

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He stressed that the precautionary principle holds that the burden of proof of safety rests with the proponent of a new technology, not the public, and where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of science should not be used as an excuse for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.

GAN also urged Governor Isidro Zayco to stand on his decision in banning genetically-modified organisms (GMO) “as one of the landmarks provision of the Organic Island.”

Cervantes theorized that GMO products are also called "genetically engineered," which are the plants, animal or microorganism (e.g., bacteria) that is created by means that overcome natural boundaries.

“Genetic engineering involves crossing species which could not cross in nature. For example, genes from a fish have been inserted into strawberries and tomatoes. Most scientists stressed that such process can lead to a much greater risks,” Cervantes said.

Thousands of scientists worldwide agree that GMOs have adverse impacts to health, environment and economy, GAN said, quoting one Dr. Michael Antoniou, senior lecturer in Molecular Biology of London, who asserted that GMO “is an imperfect technology with inherent dangers. It is the unpredictability of the outcomes that is most worrying."

GAN said that worldwide, GMO crops have put farmers in massive debts. The vast majority of the GMOs growing today are engineered to withstand direct dosing with farm chemicals. Cervantes further said these crops “mean more chemicals on our food and farms, not less. Its promise of high-yield is also debatable.”

GMOs threaten to eliminate native crop varieties which are more disastrous to farmers, he stressed.

The Philippine government approved the commercialization of Monsanto’s Yieldgard Bt corn December 2002 wherein the government’s approval of the commercialization of Bt corn is questionable especially at this time when the international market demands for non-GMO crops and products, and increasingly, organic products.

Even the US is dumping its Bt corn in poor countries as food aid due to the continuous refusal of developed countries to accept genetically modified crops into their territories, GAN said. “With the unresolved doubts on the environmental and health safety of genetically modified crops, even the famine-stricken countries in Africa are refusing to accept Bt corn as food aid!”

Cervantes also challenged a debate about the impacts of GMOs. “Once scientists in the world don’t agree on something, it is not safe and we strongly urge the provincial government to stand on its decision to ban GMOs so that organic farming will be promoted and native crop varieties will be saved.”

Cervantes noted that banning GMO is the very purpose of declaring Negros as an organic island. “We will be a laughing stock if we will recall the ban on GMOs because the livestock and poultry industry said so. The province has to look beyond the clamor of the business sector.”

Published in the Sun.Star Bacolod newspaper on July 4, 2009.