Thursday, 2 January 2025 — GM Freeze

New year greetings from GM Freeze

As 2024 was drawing to a close, here at GM Freeze we pulled together some of the year’s big stories on grassroots resistance to genetic engineering from around the world.

The latest issue of our newsletter, Thin Ice, features news from Argentina to Mars, as well as the looming question of whether the Labour government in the UK will recklessly deregulate new GMOs or adopt a responsible approach.

We spotlight the inspirational work of our member Real Seeds, and call on readers to support an international campaign to stop restrictive seed laws in trade deals. Many of the stories are highlighted below, or you can download Thin Ice 68 from our website.

We’re looking forward to meeting some vintage GM campaigners at the Oxford Real Farming Conference next week. If you were part of a the movement that managed to stop an entire global industry in its tracks, and would like to share your archives or memories, do get in touch. We hope to also inform and inspire a younger generation of food and farming activists and are excited to be curating an exhibition alongside FLAME’s Polly Meyrick.

Here’s to Food and Seed Sovereignty in the UK and beyond, in 2025 and for future generations.

Wishing you all the best for the new year,

Leonie
GM Freeze Executive Director

Genetic Engineering at the 16th UN biodiversity conference

“The beginning of the end of life is nigh,” warned Colombian President Gustavo Petro at the opening ceremony of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) 16^th Conference of Parties (COP) in Cali, Colombia, in October. This UN multiparty process is aimed at “sustaining life on earth” and is sibling to the more famous climate COP. President Petro used his platform to call for a “global revolution for humanity” to defend life.

President of Colombia,Gustavo Petro, during the opening ceremony of COP16. Image: UN TV

Yet Petro’s rallying cry did little to bolster the talks, which ended two weeks later in a mess of prolonged negotiations, missed flights and frustrated attendees. This was perhaps no surprise given that company representatives were embedded in the country delegations of the most powerful – and obstructive – nations, whilst their numbers dwarfed those of some money-poor but biodiversity-rich states.

For those concerned about the unregulated and potentially uncontrollable spread of genetically modified organisms, there was a lot at stake…

Read more on the GM Freeze website.

International news round-up
A global movement to stop GM wheat 

Over 100 Global South organisations appealed to UN Special Rapporteurs in January to block the cultivation and trade of GM wheat developed in Argentina. The alliance included food sovereignty activists, social movements of peasants and indigenous peoples, and academics from Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

“Introducing GM wheat into agricultural and food systems is akin to putting out a fire with gasoline, since it will advance the industrial agriculture frontier into marginal areas and local communities,” according to the alliance…

Read more on the GM Freeze website.

Cristina Kirchner, Argentina’s former President and shareholder in GM crop developer Bioceres. Photo: Bichos de campo.

Victory for small farmers in the Philippines; Guardian article reveals colonial mindset

“Today marks a significant victory for the Filipino farmers and people, as well as advocates of food sovereignty worldwide,” announced MASIPAG in April, as the Philippine Supreme Court ordered the commercial release of GM rice and aubergines in the country to stop.

But the news as it was coming out of the Philippines was in stark contrast to the way the Guardian and Observer chose to report the story a few weeks later. “‘A catastrophe’: Greenpeace blocks planting of ‘lifesaving’ Golden Rice,” shouted the Guardian’s headline…

Read more on the GM Freeze website.

Image: GRAIN

African Faith Leaders demand reparations from Gates: Ending the harm of the Green Revolution

Over 150 African faith, farming, and environmental leaders came together in August to demand reparations for the harm caused by the agricultural policies promoted and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and AGRA. The delivery of a co-signed letter was timed to influence the Africa Food Systems Forum in Rwanda, whose partners included the Gates Foundation, the Rwandan government, agribusiness companies and aid organisations…

Read more on the GM Freeze website.

AGRA protest. Photo: FoodFirst

European retailers call for freedom of choice

Hundreds of European retailers and food producers petitioned the EU Council in September calling for new GMOs to be labelled. The 376 companies included the third largest food retailer in the EU and the world’s largest organic supermarket chain, Biocoop.

“Across Europe, companies see their entrepreneurial freedom threatened by the EU Commission’s plans to deregulate so-called new genomic techniques (NGTs) or new GMOs,” according to the German Association Food without Genetic Engineering (VLOG)…

Read more on the GM Freeze website.

Campaign to save the Amazon from Brazil’s genetically modified trees

More than 100 organisations from over 30 countries have demanded that Brazil cancel its planned release of nine genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees and stop threatening global forest biodiversity.

Organisations and Indigenous Peoples from around the world called upon the world leaders at the biodiversity COP16 to demand a strict application of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 2008 de facto moratorium on genetically engineered trees…

Read more on the GM Freeze website.

GM Freeze Director Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher at the 16^th Convention of Biological Diversity COP speaking at a press conference on saving the Amazon from Brazil’s GM trees.

David defeats Goliath in South Africa

The commercial approval of a GM maize that is claimed to be drought tolerant has been quashed in South Africa “after nine long years of arduous litigation” by the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB).

The ACB claimed that authorities rubber-stamped Monsanto’s application for authorisation of MON87460, “uncritically accepting its paucity of evidence that the genetically modified organism (GMO) poses no threat to human health or the environment and ignoring the contrary expert evidence tendered by ACB’s experts…”

Read more on the GM Freeze website.

US wins Mexico-USA corn trade dispute

The US has won a trade dispute with Mexico over the import of genetically modified corn.

In 2023 Mexico issued a decree to restrict the use of genetically modified corn in tortillas and other minimally processed corn products, and to phase out the use of glyphosate. This sparked a trade dispute with the
USA, which sought to challenge the decision under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)…

Read more on the GM Freeze website.

An anti-GMO rally in Mexico City. Image: REUTERS/Bernardo Montoya.

Global day of action to stop unfair seed laws in trade deals

Over 20,000 people have signed a petition calling for an end to unfair seed laws in UK trade deals, Transform Trade have announced. The petition calls for an end to the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants 1991 (UPOV91).

The 2nd of December was the Global Day of Action against UPOV91. Angus Lam from GRAIN told GM Freeze: “The assault on farmers’ seeds is intensifying, driven by powerful seed companies and backed by their host governments through trade deals. On this day of action against UPOV on 2nd December, global communities are standing strong in their resistance…”

Read more on the GM Freeze website.

Changing the future:
Our Annual General Meeting…

Our AGM this year was held in October in the stylish subterranean meeting space of Kraft Dalston in London.

… And a chance to connect, reflect and strategise

In the afternoon we gathered with wider networks for a discussion on ‘Changing the future: Civil society action on food & the environment’. It was great to get a real mix of organisations together in one room, and to have a bit of space to think strategically…

Read more.

Carum Basra with Unchecked UK’s deregulation timeline.

With thanks to…

Over the last year GM Freeze has greatly benefitted from the knowledge and expertise of some amazing people working in key areas for the protection of life on earth (gravitas inspired by Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro). Thanks especially are due to:

• Our Directors, Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher (EcoNexus); Kierra Box and Simon Rose (Friends of the Earth UK); Steven Jacobs (Organic Farmers & Growers) Charlotte Bickler (Organic Research Centre), Lucia Monje-Jelfs (Soil Association) and Henrietta Lowth.
• Co-operators including Pat Thomas and Lawrence Woodward from Beyond GM; Angus Lam from GRAIN; Akiko Frid from GMO Free Regions and Claire Robinson from GM Watch.
• The organisations that signed on to our briefing for how the Labour government should regulate new GMOs responsibly: Biodynamic Federation Demeter International, Civil Society Alliance, Compassion in World Farming, CSA Network UK, Ethical Consumer Research Association, GM Watch, Hodmedod, Landworkers’ Alliance, Organic Farmers & Growers, Organic Research Centre, Permaculture Association Britain, Real Farming Trust, Real seeds, Soil Association, Sustainable Food Trust, Unchecked UK, Unicorn Grocery.
• The people that contributed to our article on the Convention of Biological Diversity’s COP16: Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher (GM Freeze and EcoNexus); Naomi Kosmehl (Save Our Seeds); Jim Thomas (Scan the Horizon) and Lim Li Ching (Third World Network).

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