Greenpeace today launched a major campaign to stop GMOs contaminating the food chain and the environment through the 'back door' as animal feed. The True Feed campaign began with a national newspaper advertising campaign featuring chickens fed on GM animal feed. Tens of thousands of shoppers across Britain are also being given information cards alerting them to this new source of GM contamination, and asking them to call supermarkets, chicken producers and fast food carelines.
Despite massive consumer rejection of GM foods, food retailers are still selling products from livestock fed on GM animal feed. In recent statements, supermarkets have lead their customers to believe that they would comprehensively remove GMOs from their products, without making the public aware that this policy did not cover animal feed.
"Most people are unaware that their Sunday roast is likely to have been reared on a diet of GM animal feed," said Greenpeace food campaigner Jim Thomas. "Or that when Britain's supermarkets went GM free, they neglected to mention that they would still have meat on their shelves fed on GM crops."
There have been a number of recent food crises caused by farmers using contaminated animal feed. Animal carcasses in feed led to the BSE crisis, carcinogenic dioxins in the oil used in feed rendered Belgian chickens and dairy products unsafe for consumption. As the recent outrage over the use of sewage in French animal feed shows, the public is extremely concerned about the links between contaminated animal feed and contaminated food.
Animal feed is the main market for GMOs. Over half of the soya and a third of the maize grown in the US is GM. While some of the crops are destined for human consumption, the majority end up in animal feed. The contaminated raw material is transported from the US to European ports like Liverpool and Rotterdam, in bulk shipments of 20,000 to 100,000 tonnes.
After the material is processed, the oil is sold for human consumption and the remaining GM material is sold to farms and feed mills to provide the staple diet for cows, pigs, chickens and fish. The meat and dairy products from these livestock are then sold to food retailers. There is no requirement for suppliers to label GM animal feeds or for retailers to label meat and dairy products from livestock fed on GM crops.
Unlike processed food for humans, animal feed is often fed raw. The main Government advisory committee on GM food has said traits such as antibiotic resistance in GM maize could be transferred to bacteria 'in the gut of animals fed on the unprocessed material'. This could add to the problem already caused by the misuse of antibiotics in intensive farming.
Marks & Spencer and Iceland Frozen Foods are the only supermarkets who have started to remove GM soya and maize ingredients from animal feed. All Marks & Spencer free-range eggs and most of its free-range chicken and pork now comes from livestock reared on GM-free animal feed. Iceland Frozen Food chicken nuggets are from chickens reared on GM-free animal feed and the chain has pledged that all its food products will be from livestock reared on GM-free feed by June 2000.
"Greenpeace is calling on consumers to let their supermarkets know as clearly as possible that they don't want meat and dairy products from animals fed on GM feed. Customers have already shown their power in getting much of the GM food in our supermarkets off the shelves," said Jim Thomas, Greenpeace food campaigner. "It's time to close the back door in GM food imports and to ban the inclusion of GM crops in the food chain. "
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Contact:
Greenpeace press office on: 020 7865 8255
