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Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Call for ban on genetically modified crops renewed
LOCAL farmers and environmental groups renewed their calls for the immediate banning of the entry and planting of genetically-engineered (GE) crops in the country in the wake of the recent approval by the government of the commercialization of a new transgenic corn variety.
Eliezer Billanes, secretary general of the Samahan ng Magsasaka sa Timug Kutabato, warned that the looming entry into the markets of Monstanto's "stacked-trait corn" would further expose the area's farms and residents to various toxins reportedly embedded in the GE corn variety.
"It's high time for Congress to intervene on this matter by passing a law that would ban these products," he said in a phone interview.
Billanes lamented that House Bill 2124 or the proposed GMO (Genetically-Modified Organism)-free Food and Agriculture Act of 2004" has been gathering dust at the committee in the House of Representatives.
Billanes said they have been gathering signatures to support the passage of such measure "which will ultimately make our country as GMO-free."
The proposed measure, filed by Anakpawis partylist Representative Rafael Mariano, prohibits the entry, sale, field-testing, and release of crops and food containing GMOs.
It cited that "there have been many cases discovered which should tell us that genetically modified products could seriously harm human beings and the environment."
The Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Plant Industry approved earlier this month the commercial distribution and planting of the "dekalb-stacked hybrid" corn, a GE product which could resist both herbicides and the Asiatic corn borer.
According to a report from the University of the Philippines Los Baños-based Biotechnology Information Center (BIC), the new hybrid corn seed is practically a combination of the controversial Bacillus thuringiesis (Bt) corn and the Roundup-Ready corn, which underwent several field tests here and the neighboring areas.
Bt corn was approved for planting in the country in late 2002 while Roundup Ready corn was introduced in the markets earlier this year. (Allen V. Estabillo)
(August 29, 2005 issue)
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