Groups Step Up Campaign...Says No To Man-Satan...

Scores of individuals and organisations continued to demonstrate against the importation of Genetically Modified (GM) foods and passage of Plant Breeders� Bill currently before parliament. Food Sovereignty Ghana and Belief The Bible Media Publications on Tuesday jointly matched through some principal streets in Accra, calling on Parliament to exercise caution before passing the Plant Breeders Bill into law. Mr James Moore of the Belief The Bible Media Publications told the Ghana News Agency that Ghana�s parliament needed to carry out comprehensive public education on positive and negative effects of GM foods for the people to make informed choices. He observed that natural foods being produced by Ghanaian farmers contained the most potent nutrients which state authorities ought to take steps to protect and prevent them from being diluted by chemically-induced foreign foods. Mr Moore contended that passage of the bill would create a leeway to destroy farmers' rights and freedoms and expand the rights and reach of multinational corporations in the basic social fabric of indigenes. Ali-Masmadi Jehu-Appiah, Chairperson of Food Sovereignty Ghana said the bill would make it illegal for farmers to engage in their usual practice of freely saving, using, sharing and selling seeds. �In this respect, the Plant Breeders' Bill literally outlaws the business of farming,� he added. According to him, farmers would be forced to buy the limited variety of seeds available from multinational corporate plant breeders replacing traditional seeds with uniform commercial varieties. He said "If Ghana passes laws to protect our health and environment from the plant breeder corporations; it could be subject to massive judgment debts.� In October last year, Mr Duke Tagoe, Deputy Director of Food Sovereignty Ghana expressed concern over food safety and appealed to Ghanaians to kick against the introduction of GMO food and seeds into the country. He argued that it would deprive Ghanaians of their means of livelihood because government would have to import seeds from Monsanto, the international company responsible for the production of the GMOs. Demonstrators on Tuesday carried placards, some of which read, �no to Man-Satan (Monsanto)� and �GMO away�, among others