Page 32 - Winter2010

Money can of the European Commission. Only Greece and union and the new government, under Donald
indeed buy Austria had come close to achieving such a bar- Tusk, kept an increasingly silent position on the
rier. It seemed that Poland was to make history future of the anti-GMO legislation enacted by
out the seeds and perhaps lead the rest of Europe towards a his predecessor.
of revolution, new moratorium, if not outright ban, of GMO. Kaczynski’s team had already appeared to
stall when confronted by the dual threat of a fine
But such a fairy tale scenario has yet to un-
but the hearts fold. In fact, the situation has gone into decline. from the European Commission for instituting
of the Under the current administration led by Prime an “illegal” blanket ban on GMO (under EU law
peasants will Minister Donald Tusk, the commercial planting no country is allowed to overstep “free trade”
not be of GM seeds is back on the agenda and a new dictates by outright banning of GMO) and the
act is proposed to align Poland with Brussels huge corporate backlash resulting from the ban.
satisfied. and open the possibility for the “coexistence” of Now that a new government with a dis-
GM and non-GM crops. Such a plan would spell tinctly modernizing agenda was in charge, we
disaster in the highly diverse Polish countryside were forced to work even harder in order to
and cross contamination would be inevitable. keep the anti-GMO momentum alive. Faced
ICPPC continues (as of 2010) to battle against by this denouement we decided to help create a
this outcome and to urge the current administra- new national organization, “The Coalition for a
tion to follow the example of Germany, France, GMO-Free Poland,” and to draw upon as wide
Austria, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and a cross section of society as possible to promote
Luxembourg and ban GM crops. its aims. There are now 180 organizations and
Back in 2005, bemused Polish farmers could key individuals on the books and we have made
hardly grasp the significance of attempts to foist some headway with the wary media.
genetically modified organisms upon them.
Already deeply perplexed by the strange new THE SMITHFIELD THREAT
world of western capitalism and shell shocked Amongst those who have joined us are col-
by the complexities and apparent two-facedness leagues fighting another predatory US invader,
of the CAP, the additional need to absorb the Smithfield, the giant pig factory farming mul-
seemingly unfathomable “science” and propa- tinational (UK subsidiary Danish Crown, East
ganda surrounding GMO left many confused Anglia) which moved onto Polish soil (or should I
and uncertain. Aware of this dangerously exploit- say concrete) in the late 1990s and, with a strong
able situation, we embarked on a countrywide link to Monsanto’s North American GM soya
awareness-raising campaign armed with the anti- export trade, established their perverse animal
GMO exposé film Life Running Out of Control factories with the aid of a cheap Polish work
dubbed into Polish and recorded onto CD. force and corrupt government officials. The
We ran into considerable flack, especially thousands of GM soya-fattened pigs that now
wherever university professors of agriculture flood the market have helped undercut the prices
were invited to lead public debates. Often, on and destroy the livelihood of many hundreds of
such occasions, Jadwiga and I were the only already hard pressed traditional pork farmers
voices against GMOs and were up against half throughout Poland and far beyond.
a dozen Powerpoint-presentation-backed profs Smithfield and other industrial farming units
lecturing straight from the Monsanto manual. operating out of Poland don’t like the idea of a
However, the distinctly intuitive Polish public GM animal feed ban and have used the current
nearly always came down on our side, offering high price of conventional animal feeds to pres-
much needed encouragement. sure the government into postponing the ban.
Newspapers, television and to a lesser extent The Polish government changed as of 2006 and
radio, were—and remain—pretty much gagged the incoming party did not feel inclined to en-
from reporting the truth. As we discovered, much force the ban. Consequently it was “put forward”
of the Polish media is in foreign hands or a high until 2013 or beyond. Smithfield is still operating
stake is held by outside interests. The GMO lobby as before, but has moved its main operations to
had already won round the main Polish farmers’ Romania, where small scale pig farmers will no
32 Wise Traditions WINTER 2010

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