The 2005 Heart-to-Heart at Hay Festival

Saturday 4th June 2005

Organic food is natural. GM food is deceptive.

The speakers explained why GM can never be the right answer to world nutrition and why organic food will provide the answer.

Dr Michael Antoniou
Senior Lecturer in Molecular Genetics, Division of Medical and Molecular Genetics, King's College London. Michael's expertise and research interests are in human gene organisation and control leading to human genetic therapy applications. He has acted in an advisory capacity on biotechnology issues to the Soil Association, Greenpeace, Econexus, GeneWatch and Friends of the Earth and most recently he was nominated to represent these joint NGOs to represent their views during the second session of the UK government's GM Science Review Panel. He has also been called upon for advise on applications of genetic modification (GM) in medicine and especially agriculture by members of all major (and some minor) political parties. He has been an invited speaker at public meetings, schools and conferences throughout the UK debating agricultural biotechnology issues. Organisers have included Farmers Weekly Magazine, FWAG, Natural Food Trade Organisations, Soil Association, Organisation of University Caterers, Guild of Food Writers, Townswomen's Guild and many local societies. Written many articles on the use of GM in medicine and especially agriculture for the lay public. Articles have appeared in Farmers Weekly, The Living Earth (Soil Association), Smallholder (Farming) Magazine, The Independent on Sunday, The Vegetarian and other society magazines. Michael has had extensive interaction with the media over the last 7 years giving interviews on agricultural biotechnology issues. He has been extensively quoted by the press (all national papers and many magazines), has had letters published in all the major national newspapers, participated in numerous (mostly live) radio programmes, TV news programmes and has contributed to several TV documentaries including "Frankenstein's Food" (Close Up West, BBC2 Bristol, "Seeds of Doubt" (First Sight, BBC2 Southeast), Frankenstein Food (Panorama, BBC2).

Rt Hon Michael Meacher, MP
Educated at Berkhamstead School, New College Oxford and the London School of Economics. He joined the Labour Party in 1962 and has been Labour Member of Parliament for Oldham West and Royton since 1970. His political appointments include; Environmental Protection, Minister of State for the Environment and member of the Environmental Audit Committee. He is a Parliamentary representative and member of UNISON. His other affiliations are the Fabian Society, SERA and the Child Poverty Action Group. His is strongly opposed to the promotion of GM foods in the UK. Distrustful of evidence given by the biotech companies his overlying concern is the safety of GM crops and there effect on the environment and human health. He is outspoken about the US policy of dumping GM food on starving African countries and calling it aid.

Jeffrey M. Smith
Jeffrey M. Smith is the author of the international bestselling book on the risks of genetically engineered foods, Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating. He is also the producer of the video, Hidden Dangers in Kids' Meals and author of the nationally syndicated monthly column, Spilling the Beans. He has travelled in five continents,briefing world leaders and the public on the documented risks of genetically modified (GM) foods and crops and the controversies surrounding their approval. Mr. Smith has made presentations to representatives from more than 50 countries and has reached tens of millions of people through hundreds of media interviews. He has worked with non-profit and political groups on this issue for nearly a decade. Mr. Smith is the director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, a member of the Genetic Engineering Committee of the Sierra Club, on the Steering Committee of the Genetic Engineering Action Network, and on the advisory board of the Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods.In 1998, Mr. Smith ran for U.S. Congress to raise public awareness of the health and environmental impacts of GM crops. He later became vice president of marketing for a GMO detection laboratory. Prior to working in this field, Mr. Smith was a writer, educator, and public speaker for non-profit groups, advancing the causes of health, environment, and personal development. This book Seeds of Deception, researched and written after he left the industry, combines Smith's passion for these causes with his extensive knowledge of the risks and cover-ups behind genetically modified foods. He has a master's degree in business administration and lives with his wife in Iowa, surrounded by genetically modified corn and soybeans.

Peter Melchett
Peter Melchett is Policy Director of the Soil Association, the UK's main organic food and farming organisation. Peter was a Special Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences, Nottingham University from 1984 to 2002. He is currently a member of the BBC's Rural Affairs Committee, the Department of Education's School Lunches Review Panel, and the Government's Organic Action Plan Group, and is on the Board of the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme £12m Research Project 'Quality Low Input Food' at the University of Newcastle. He does some work as an environmental consultant, for example with IKEA International and ASDA.

Peter was a Labour Government Minister in the House of Lords from 1974 to 1979, first at the Department of the Environment, then Department of Industry and finally in Northern Ireland, responsible for education, health and social services. He was a trustee of the World Wildlife Fund UK for seven years from 1977, and was President, Chair or Council member of several of the UK's leading nature conservation and wildlife NGOs before working full-time at Greenpeace UK from 1989.

Peter was Chair of Greenpeace UK between 1986 and 1988, a member of the International Board in 1988 and 2001, and Chair of the Board of Greenpeace Japan from 1995 to 2001. He was Executive Director of Greenpeace UK for eleven years from 1989 to 2000. In that time, Greenpeace UK's turnover grew from £1.4m (with 12 staff and 25,000 supporters) to £7.5m (with 80 staff and over 200,000 supporters). Campaigns that Peter was particularly involved with included efforts to stop commercial whaling, the successful campaign against the dumping of Shell's Brent Spar oil platform, and Greenpeace's successful world-wide campaign against genetically modified crops and food. In 1999, Peter was arrested with 27 other volunteers after starting to remove a crop of GM maize because of the environmental threat it posed. After a three-week jury trial all 28 were found not guilty of all criminal charges, the jury agreeing with Greenpeace that removal of the crop was justified on safety grounds.

Peter continues to be actively involved in working to stop GM crops and food, and to encourage the healthy, environmentally and animal welfare friendly organic alternative. Peter's policy work at the Soil Association also includes the successful programme to reform school meals in England and Wales, further improvement of animal welfare on organic farms, and highlighting the environmental, social and health benefits of organic food.

He also runs an 890 acre organic farm in Norfolk, in the East of England. Crops include barley, wheat, peas and grass. The farm has a herd of Red Poll beef cattle, a local, native breed, sheep and pigs, and is well known for the wildlife conservation work carried out over the last 30 years, and for the high level of public access encouraged for over 20 years.