“Maddest” in Agriculture Ministry

I honestly hope you didn’t “polish off” a mad cow or a cloned imported one for lunch.

Mad cow disease, AIDS, SARS are only some of the diseases that have marked the recent period. These diseases did not originate as a natural occurrence, but are the consequence of human conduct and actions that are in contrast to nature.

Safe cows

These days the entire world public was shook up by the news that American and Japanese scientists have genetically engineered cattle resistant to mad cow disease. They call them “safe cows”, although they do not know whether they can procreate or the risks of eating their meat.

It is odd that someone finds it necessary to carry out such an intervention on the genes of a “poor” animal when it is a widely known fact that by the appearance of mad cow disease one out of a million people became ill with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. I am hoping that this shocking news has motivated our responsible grey-haired heads to finally protect national genetic resources and authentic breeds so that children, “God forbid”, would not think that cows really are purple, like the one on the cover of a certain chocolate.

The public was stirred up even more by the news that the American Food and Medicine Agency announced it is ready to ratify the sales of milk and meat of cloned animals, without special labels. Cloned embryos are given large doses of hormones, and born clones high doses of antibiotics due to damages they are born with, which means that all these hormones and antibiotics would be present in the food people would be eating.

Who is mad? Cows or people?

In case you didn`t know, Croatia has, unfortunately, imported around 2 billion dollars worth of agricultural products in 2006. I honestly hope you didn’t “polish off” a crazy cow or a cloned imported one for lunch! It has been proven that Sana, a cow from Ivankovo (eastern Croatia) had been falsely accused of madness due to selfish interest of the meat industry and the import of cows that are cheaper, but clearly, “madder” than the mentioned Croatian Sana. Afterwards, the average Croatian person decided that the maddest were those at the Ministry of Agriculture.

Some say gene manipulation will cause a catastrophe on a larger scale than an atomic bomb. Man, scientist, got “carried away” and produced corn and soy with the gene of bacteria, strawberries and tomatoes with the gene of a fish… Genetic engineering – the transference of genes form one species to another, has violated the natural law of the “impermeable species barrier”. But that is not all. An unlimited possibility of “redesigning”, improving, altering organs, even organisms has been created to the will and wishes of anyone for anything.

Genetic engineering has become involved in the production and distribution of food, thus operating over the whole of humanity and nature! Advocates of genetic engineering in food production wanted to increase food sources and its quantity in order to “allegedly” curb hunger. Wealthy countries are getting wealthier at the cost of the poor under the guise of charity, saving the allegedly hungry with genetically modified food, although it is well know to everyone that the issue of hunger is not an issue of food, but politics.

Interest of multinational companies

They wanted to create crops resistant to herbicides and thus increase grain yield. But genes for the resistance to herbicides have spread to akin wild species by cross-pollination, creating weeds resistant to herbicides in only a few seasons. Large multinational companies find their interest here, of course. By selling the genetically modified seed (resistant to herbicides) to farmers, they are also selling the herbicides they produce themselves.

Luckily, our farmers are much wiser than in the so-called developed countries, and are not even thinking about buying and planting GMO seed and so poisoning the land they live off. Various emissaries came to us offering GMO bacteria and then plants for demining. It is a lucky thing in all of this misfortune that our bureaucracy is so complicated that they gave up. So that they don’t even think again about offering such technologies to us, I wish to say to them: “Do not touch my fields”.

Noticing possible consequences of the usage of genetically modified organisms and products, The Croatian parliament in 1998 decided, at the proposal of the club of representatives of the Croatian Peasants’ Party (HSS), to prohibit the sowing of GMO seeds, even for experimental purposes, and committed the government to draft adequate laws.

Legal regulation by several laws and then by a separate law did not protect our national interests the best, so we took the matter into our own hands. At the proposal of HSS councillors, 12 Croatian county assemblies have so far prohibited the sowing of GMO seed and proclaimed the counties GMO-free counties.

I wish to inform those who doubt our actions that a network of GMO-free regions has been formed at the European level which consists of 42 regions and 172 have been declared in European Union countries so far. More than 70% of consumers in the EU do not want to eat GMO.

Only home-made

Instead of fighting for a GMO-free Croatia and becoming a real small oasis of “healthy food”, our governing heads haven’t even created a negotiations platform for the GMO issue which is present in several negotiation areas.

Croatia’s long-term goal must be sustainable development – a development which satisfies today’s generations without placing in question the survival of future generations. As a small country, we are a small polluter, both regionally and locally. A well-preserved environment must become our comparative and competitive advantage in the future too, especially in the food production segment, as a support to local population and investment in tourism and the all the more expected export.

Moreover, genetically modified food is not produced in Croatia today and considerable initiatives are underway for increasing surfaces for ecological agriculture. As a result, a unique opportunity is presented to us to be a country of preserved nature and “health food”, by which we will be exceptionally recognisable.

Marijana Petir,

Croatian Peasant Party (HSS)