Allan Patton:  That the RDOS become a GMO free zone for agriculture and horticulture products

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) – Fact Sheet April 2012

What are Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)? : Plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology and is also called genetic engineering (GE). This technology merges DNA from different species and can create plant, animal, bacterial and viral genes that could never occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding. (**must be so different that the creation can be patented but not so different that it can’t be considered substantially equivalent, a concept that “maintains that a novel food (genetically modified foods) should be considered the same as and as safe as a conventional food if it demonstrates the same characteristics and composition as the conventional food

What’s the Problem?

Regulations which were weak to begin with, have not kept up with the growth of the industry and are now seriously failing to protect Canadians from:

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Negative impacts to our health, environment and markets

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Increasing monopoly control over seeds by multinationals

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Industry‘s inability to control their products from contaminating non-gm crops

 

Why Should we be Concerned?

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Weak and outdated regulations allow the introduction of new and complex GM crops without environmental, human health or market assessments

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There has never been a democratic debate on the introduction of GMOs into our society and environment.

Note to commenter: I think the explanation of what Mr. Patton’s motion is pretty clear to most that read it. You can find more by going to the RDOS site and look up the meeting agenda material for next Thursday.