Anti-GMO marches were held in 12 Polish cities, as a sign of solidarity with the 15-hundred people strong march for GMO-free world which set off on the 18th of June from Berlin and reached Brussels at the end of July.
Joanna Najfeld reports
Participants were collecting signatures under the so-called Warsaw Declaration calling for an immediate ban on GMO food production and an end to its imports and sales. Participants of Polish marches in Krakow, Lodz, Warsaw, Bydgoszcz, Bialystok, Jeleniewo, Katowice, Kielce, Mielec, Opole, Szczecin, Wadowice and Zielona Gora, handed lists of signatures under the Warsaw Declaration to their local authorities, they also tried to raise consumer awareness of GMO foods by teaching how to properly lead labels, at the same time petitioning authorities to change labeling regulations.
According to the findings of the US-based International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, Poland is in the top 5 EU producers of GMO crops. When Poland joined the EU in 2004 and first laboratories testing for the presence of GMO organisms in foods were set up, it turned out as much as 25% of food present on Polish market already contained genetically modified organisms. In 2008, GMO crops were grown on as many as three thousand hectars of Polish land, which is nine times more than a year before. Within the EU, only Spain, the Czech Republic, Romania and Portugalia grow more GMO plants.
Reportedly, Polish government is not able to state the exact size of GMO crops, as there are no regulations which would allow to monitor them. Recently, the European Tribunal of Justice ruled against Poland, punihing the country with high fines for introducing a ban on GMO seeds during the term of the previous government on the 2nd of July 2006.
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