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Greenpeace founder calls for acceptance of GMO foods

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Dr. Patrick Moore GMO foods

Dr. Patrick Moore

Written by Jonathan Eisenthal

Dr. Patrick Moore appeared last week at the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council annual meeting — just one of many stops along a tour to raise awareness that the acceptance of genetically modified foods (GMOs) is a life and death issue.

Moore recently staged protests in Toronto and in Vancouver, in front of the Rainbow Warrior — the ocean going vessel that Greenpeace has used to battle whaling.

Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace, said he parted from the group when it strayed from its initial agenda of stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the indiscriminate killing of baby seals, and became an organization that promotes the idea that the world would be better off without people.

“The people who are stopping golden rice are committing a crime against humanity,” Moore told an audience of 500 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, including a full spectrum of food and agriculture industry representatives, as well as elected officials and members of the media.

Golden rice is a rice plant that has been genetically altered to include a high dose of beta-carotene in the rice grain. This gives it an unusual golden color, and would deliver the nutrient

Another example of the Greenpeace zero-tolerance campaign against GMOs has been its attempt to keep GMO corn out of European and Asian countries. In the case of the Phillipines, farmers clamored for the GMO varieties.

In the 10 years since the introduction of GMO corn, farmers’ incomes have risen and pesticide use has dropped by 50 percent. Greenpeace’s dire claims that GMO corn would give rise to “children dying and cancer clusters” have not occurred.

As part of Moore’s campaign he is publicizing a list of organizations that declare GMO food to be safe:

The American Medical Association
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
The World Health Organization
The National Academy of Sciences
The Royal Society of Medicine (UK)
The European Commission
The American Council on Science and Health
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
The American Society for Cell Biology
The American Society for Microbiology
The American Society of Plant Sciences
The International Seed Foundation
The International Society of African Scientists
The Federation of Animal Science Societies
The Society of Toxicology
The French Academy of Science
The Union of German Academies

You can view the slides Moore used during his presentation here.

The annual Agri-Growth Council conference also featured other keynote speakers. Below are videos from Minnesota agriculture commissioner Dave Frederickson giving a state of the state of agriculture address and University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler speaking about agriculture.

 

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