Stop GM are organising a rally to oppose the continued use of public money to develop technology that is not only unpopular but also unnecessary.

The Forum, Norwich, 12 noon, Saturday 23rd July 2011 [map]

For the last 10 years, researchers at the Sainsbury laboratory in Norwich have spent 1.7 million pounds of public money unsuccessfully trying to develop a genetically modified blight resistant spud. But a number of conventionally bred blight resistant potatoes on the market - such as the those developed by Savari Research Trust already exist. So why are we wasting so much public money funding a spud u don’t like.

Public rejection of the health and environmental risks associated with genetically modified food means that even if the engineering involved was successful, there would be no market for the crop - all previous GM crops that have been granted a UK license have been abandoned due to lack of market. Despite this the current con-dem government has declared its intention to be “the most pro GM this country has ever seen”.

Delivering the answer to GM crops

We think the Sainsbury’s laboratory and the government should be told that we’ve found the potatoes they’re looking for. So we’re going to deliver them to the doors of their research centre. We’ll be forming a carnival procession of families and farmers led by the next generation on pedal tractors, each towing a mini trailer of safe spuds. There’ll be pedal powered tunes, and a full sized tractor to jump on. There will almost certainly be chips.

Meet at The Forum in Norwich City Centre at 12 noon for free chips and fun!We will set off from there to the John Innes Research Centre by bike, tractor and coach at 1pm

More info here: http://www.stopgm.org.uk/gathering-momentum.html

Sunday 24th July

Countering the GM come back

Make a weekend of it by sticking around under for a day long camp to plan the next stages of the campaign. Help build projects on everything from getting the GM oil out of takeaways to next years proposed GM wheat trials, raising awareness of the new studies on human health effects to European public decontamination solidarity work. Camping spaces available from Friday pm onwards.

For practical details see www.stopgm.org.uk/gathering-momentum or ring 07595 506673