Sir, - I am writing in response to Kevin Myers's Irishman's Diary of August 19th. His claim that "most people campaigning against GM crops here are foreign" is nonsense. Where did he get that fact? I am one of the seven protesters who openly and accountably damaged Monsanto's genetically altered sugar beet trial in Wexford last year and faced trial for the action earlier this year. The clear intention of the 30 protesters, who in full view of gardai and press entered the test site, was to stop the immediate threat of genetic pollution.
It is true that I am not Irish. I was lured to Ireland by its green and clean image, which it is in serious danger of losing. The only other protester at Wexford who was not Irish was the 85-year-old writer and organic farmer John Seymour, who has lived here for almost 30 years. As no one yet knows the identity or nationality of the recent genetic saboteurs, Mr Myers's "neo-colonial arable vandalism" theory is completely unsubstantiated and smacks of xenophobia. Perhaps Kevin Myers knows something the Garda does not yet know in identifying the recent genetic saboteurs as foreign.
Organic agriculture, the environment and our health are under threat from the introduction of GM crops according to some scientists, and contrary to what Kevin Myers claims, genes do cross species, a process called horizontal gene transfer. The tests that Monsanto are carrying out in Ireland - like the testing he cites as having taken place in other European countries - do not investigate or even consider the threats to human health or the environment, nor do they take into account the possibility of horizontal gene transfer. Once these genes are released into the environment there is no calling them back. Our children, of whatever nationality, may never forgive us for not applying the precautionary principle. - Yours, etc.,
David Philip, Sussex Terrace, Dublin 4.