Page 31 - Winter2010

pigs and milk. Exactly as happened to UK farm- on senior figures in the Polish government.
ers, Polish farmers are now being forced out of What they wanted was a relaxation of national GMO precautionary
business by the covert and overt destruction of laws and a government commitment to support the development of geneti-
the infrastructure which supports their profes- cally modified organisms as a symbol of the modernization of traditional
sion. The rural economy thus implodes and farm- Polish farming.
ing communities are scattered to the wind. All
that emerges on the green fields that they have GMO RESISTANCE MOVEMENT
left behind them are Tesco superstores and other We at ICPPC got wind of these developments and decided to put the
hypermarket clones. great majority of our time and the lion’s share of our meager financial
The European Union CAP sanitary and resources into fighting this new and immensely threatening dragon. Thus
hygiene weapons have already been resharpened started an amazing campaign which, over the space of one and a half years,
and are currently scything their way through Ro- managed to help galvanize the provincial boards of every province in Po-
manian family farms, whose extraordinary diver- land (there are 16) to come up with a “GMO Free Zone” self declaration.
sity and peasant farming skills are a ready match Each province in turn, picked up the torch and signed on, so that even-
for Poland’s. The sterile and tually (September 2005)
unstoppable conglomerate the whole country could
no doubt now has its sights declare itself GMO free.
set on Turkey, too. The chairs of each
What is known as the province wrote to the prime
“global food economy” is minister demanding nation-
the instrument of a rela- al legislation to recognize
tively small number of very their new status by law. At
wealthy transnational cor- first nothing happened, but
porations. It is a small club, then, much to everyone’s
but one that harbors very big surprise—and Monsanto’s
ambitions. One such corpo- fury—Jaroslaw Kaczynski
ration is Monsanto (USA), (then Prime Minister) an-
whose recent marriage with nounced that legislation
the Cargill corporation would be passed to ban the
makes it the biggest seed and import and sale of GMO
agrichemical merchant in the Polish farmers spread compost on their fields. seeds and plants in Poland.
world. Poland has been in the This was followed a little
sights of the Monsanto corporation, as well as later by a similar announcement declaring that GM animal feed would
those of fellow seed operatives Dupont, Pioneer, also be banned as of 2008.
and Syngenta, for some time now. However, in Europe and the rest of the world were amazed. Seemingly coming
2004—the same year that Poland joined the out of nowhere there was suddenly a country that had passed national
EU—Monsanto started a major lobbying drive legislation to ban GM seeds and animal feeds, an illegal act in the eyes

CURRENT ACTIVITIES OF THE INTERNATIONAL COALITION TO PROTECT THE POLISH COUNTRySIDE

• RAISING THE SOCIAL STATUS OF FARMERS USING WORK HORSES: A Małopolska-based project whose significance
is highlighted by rising oil prices and the need to directly address the global warming effects of excessive CO emissions.
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• SAVE POLAND’S SEEDS: An awareness-raising campaign amongst farmers and gardeners to protect the indigenous seed
base at a time of increasing corporate piracy, modification and ownership of native seeds.

• ICPPC ECO_CENTER: The opening of ICPPC’s eco-center at Coalition headquarters in Stryszów for educational visits
by schools in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of renewable energy technologies and ecological farming.

• WORKSHOP SERIES: Current monthly lecture-workshop series, “Taking Back Control of Our Lives.”

WINTER 2010 Wise Traditions 31

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