Gerald Miles is driving his tractor from Pembrokeshire to London to protest about GM. Please give him your support, I can supply a map of his route as an acrobat file as I have not worked out how to paste it here. ----------------------------- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/3167304.stm BBC news, Monday, 6 October, 2003, 10:37 GMT 11:37 UK A west Wales farmer is spending a week travelling to London by tractor to campaign against genetically modified crops. Gerald Miles left the village square in Mathry, Pembrokeshire, on Monday morning with the aim of getting to London in time for a protest march next Monday. The 55-year-old organic farmer is hoping to raise awareness about the issue and is urging fellow farmers and members of the public to support him. He is convinced no-one yet knows what impact GM will have on people's health or the environment. The Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) member said: "I believe planting GM crops on a commercial scale is not a risk we should be taking especially as consumer demand for non-GM food is overwhelming. "GM crops, whether planted commercially or as trials, will inevitably contaminate both non-GM and organic crops. "If the government does go ahead with the commercialisation of GM it will be another nail in the farming coffin." The FUW has been at the forefront of the campaign to make Wales a GM-free zone. The union is part of an anti-GM alliance, which includes Friends of the Earth Cymru, GM-Free Wales and the Womens' Institute, lobbying against the commercial growing of GM crops. FUW vice-president Brian Walters, of Carmarthen, said: "The government must listen to the views of consumers and abandon plans to press ahead with the commercial growing of GM crops. "As farmers we are continually being lectured by politicians to produce food in a way that is approved of by the consumer. "So I sincerely hope that the politicians will now listen to the clear views of the public and abandon any plans to launch the commercial growing of GM crops in this country." Mr Walters claimed farmers were more in tune with public opinion than the government. "Shoppers don't want to buy GM foods, supermarkets don't want to sell it and farmers don't want to grow it," he added. Mr Miles will travel through Carmarthen, Swansea, Bridgend, Cardiff and Abergavenny before heading for Birmingham. There he will meet fellow protesters, before driving back towards London, using minor roads. He said: "For this to be a success, we need the help of farmers and sympathetic members of the public in spreading the word. "They could also show support by joining me for part of the route if it passes their farm. "Perhaps they could also collect signatures for our message of opposition to the government or even join us on the parade in London on 13 October."

i am sure i can speak for at least some of the farmers on the forums when i say way to go gerald we will be seeing you or hearing of you on the march

So I assume we are anti-GM's. (See GM's Again)?

Tom, how is GM bad for our health?I think i am far more likely to keel over having ingested ergot or mycotoxins from organic grain.Having said that, i am anti GM for the simple reason that staying out of it gives us a potential niche marketing opportunity for UK produce.

Not sure all this adds up???... if GM is comercialised/approved but no farmers want to grow GM, then what is the problem?.. who will be growing it? Gardeners?... (unless it will be compulsory!)

Good picture of Gerald on the road at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/3167304.stm

Classic piece of anti-GM misinformation, it isn,t even a tractor!!!! Jack Caley

Jack For once I am in agreement. When Gerald told me he was going down by tractor I thought he would choose one more comfortable than his JCB telescopic. Got to admire his commitment though so I have decided to go and join him, we will be meeting up on Monday at 11.45am outside NFU headquarters on Shaftesbury Avenue. Please could you ask Sir Ben to have the kettle on (or will we just be met with boiling oil)? Farmers have done a lot for environmentalists in recent years and this time we will be asking something in return. We want Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace et al to commit themselves to supporting us in our campaign for a fair price for milk. There is a deal here for the taking if any farmers leader or aspiring President wants to meet us there to shake on it. TTFN

Tom You want Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace et al to commit themselves to supporting us in our campaign for a fair price for milk?... , they are in the misinformation business, not getting their followers to part with extra cash to give to people that they have claimed in the past to have done so much damage.

Richard It just shows how little you know about Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace supporters. We have always believed that the price of food should reflect the real cost to the environment and society. We don't want cheap food at the expense of exploiting the health and well-being of farm workers or livestock either. See you at the rally, Tom! Jean

On a personal note, I have lobbied my local dairy (The Co-op) to increase the amount that is paid to dairy farmers for their milk. Milk went up a mere 1p a pint as a result. I was told that the increase would go the farmer, but I have my doubts. I am appalled at the amount that farmers receive for milk, crops and livestock - it is criminal

Jean If thats the case why have greenpeace etc not written to me yet offering a cheque for around £80,000 to farm totally according to their ideas for a year?..i am up for it...will they put their money where their mouth is?

Jean, It also goes to show just how little Greenpeace et al understand about the real issue in GM. I have always believed that although the economic argument is relevent, the real tragedy of non-development of GM would or will be an environmental one. It is typified by the so-called pre-empting of the trials publication whereby somebody has said that maize should proceed where the others should not because it can rely on ATRIZINE!!! A week later the EC is proposing it should be banned because of its toxicity. Just how good a judgement was that? And how much did they know about their subject? Jack Caley.

Richard The consumer should be paying the price to enable you to farm sensitively. Environmentally aware buyers already pay more as they don't shop at supermarkets, they choose to buy local produce and try to buy UK organic produce where possible. Jean

Jean Agreed... but 90% of consumers (and 100% supermarket buyers) read the price label and not the origin label... so the only way is to come directly to me.

Jean, Over the last three years GM has allowed us to use less fuel, less sprays, given us a cleaner farm and, this year, an average yield of 4 tonnes of barley delivered on to the docks, the best yield in my life. Jack Caley

Jack It just goes to show how poorly the farmscale trials of GM crops were designed if they didn't reflect how crops (both GM and non-GM) will be managed in the near future. Surely the Pesticide Safety Directorate was aware that the EU was proposing to ban the use of atrazine and simazine? They might have said something to the biotech unit at DEFRA! Bayer certainly kept it quiet that GM corn growers using their glufosinate tolerant variety had to add atrazine to their tank mix to get adequate weed control. Syngenta have been working on atrazine alternatives for maize such as Samson that is a post-emergent herbicide that appears to be performing okay. I haven't seen any toxicity data so I don't know that it is less harmful than atrazine. I've argued before that fodder maize could be drilled after the application of something like glyphosate to the early flush of weeds. You said that yields would not be as good using this system. I have only seen very poor yields from the GM maize grown locally so I can't see the difference. It has just emerged that Mexican maize is now exhibiting up to 4 GMO traits in some plants analysed. It is a tragedly to contemplate that landrace maize is getting contaminated with GMOs. Whilst this is not a UK problem as maize has no compatible wild varieties, if transgenic biotechnology does prove to be a disaster, aren't you bothered that we may have compromised basic seed stock? Jean

Jean, We did not have to use atrizine on the GM maize, it was totally unecessary. It was necessary on the conventional crop but did not work as well, the difference in the two crops was phenomenal. It was not the pesticide safety people who brought up this point about atrizine in the Guardian, I don,t know who it was, it was just somebody setting up hares again. Anything to keep up the anti GM campaign. Any weapon of mass destruction. The pity of it is, banning atrizine for field beans means a serious blow for what is an environmentally friendly legume, Pity we could not continue to use atrizine until GM technology could be perfected on the bean crop, as it is on millions of hectares of soya bean in US, Brasil and illegally in the Argentine. You have a point about basic seed stock, we would of course be able to preserve old varieties as they do now at the John Innes Research place. Instead of shouting at each other, often in ignorance of the other side of the coin, we should be cooperating and helping each other so that we could further the development of a technique which offers so much benefit to mankind and the environment. Jack Caley

Jack I thought that it was the loss of simazine that is more of a blow for field bean growers. Are you telling me that one application of Liberty on your GM maize performed better than the atrazine treated non-GM half? It must depend on the weed profile of your field. Liberty doesn't appear to be very effective on hairy weeds such as cleaver and waxy leaves such as fathen. You mentioned a great yield of barley - are you trialling GM barley? Jean

Jean, Atrizine or simazine is a loss to bean growers but I would rather we were growing GM beans as I said.Pity it is going to be difficult to grow an environmentally friendly crop like beans. You did of course evade the point I was making about the scaremongers putting out inept information in the Guardian. Of course the GM half was way better than the conventional half. Could also have been that GM is always true to type as well, one of its big advantages. The Liberty worked very well in our trials, how many more times do I need to say it? We are not of course trialling barley, I don,t know if such a thing exists but if it were possible it would be great. The point I was making was that one of the reasons why we got a good crop of barley was that we were growing it on clean fertile fields after maize and OSR which were also break crops. Jack Caley

Jack The information in the Guardian about atrazine was not scare-mongering. It merely pointed out that the EU were banning the use of atrazine and, as such, this makes the farmscale trials of maize invalid as the non-GM half was grown using a herbicide that won't be used in future fodder maize management. The Pesticide Safety Directorate has applied to the EU requesting a derogation so that atrazine can still be used on sweetcorn and in forestry but they are not seeking continued use on fodder maize. The article that appeared in the Guardian was not the cause of the proposed ban on atrazine, it was just reporting a fact. I agree that Liberty controlled weeds well in the GM oil seed rape trials but your experience with the GM maize was obviously not typical. As I said before, you must have a different weed profile in your fields. The last thing we need is GMHT field beans - the same problem as growing rape - loads of volunteers to contend with. Jean

Jean, I cannot seem to bring up the original posting, I think it was by Tom, so possibly like you my impression of the original article in the Guardian would seem to be a little imprecise!!! The article, which until the 16th, remains supposition. Whilst we all agree that any negative reporting is good campaigning and all good fun, surely if the public is to be well informed as claimed by some, it should be well informed of the truth by people who maybe have an accurate knowledge of what they say. My point was that the article claimed to have leaked knowledge of the Trials results and claimed that OSR and sugar beet would be banned but maize could be retained as it used atrizine, a very powerful chemical which anyone in the industry has been likely to be banned for some time. To me it illustrated the calibre of the people who were writing the article. Maybe the last thing YOU need is GMHT beans in your mind. However if you had seen our miserable crop of beans this year, even after use of two strong chemicals, one of which was simazine, you would understand why a much more environmentally friendly system of weed control like GM would be far,far better, for all. Jack Caley Besides which, ask any practicing farmer and he will tell you that beans and OSR are the two easist of all volunteers to get rid of.