Good Morning,

We’ve had the opportunity this morning of listening to various key players on the issue of GMO and the danger it presents to Ireland, mainly from a farming and agricultural slant. This morning I am here as spokesperson for EuroToques on G. M. foods and like Mike Barry from Marks and Spencers I represent the middlemen in the food chain____between the farmer and the consumer

Let me firstly introduce myself. I have been involved in the restaurant and food business for most of my life. I opened my first restaurant in Clifden, Co. Galway in 1985, and in 1988, I headed down to Kerry and opened my second restaurant ‘The Strawberry Tree’. I have always been a firm believer that as a restaurateur, I have a responsibility to my customers of sourcing the very best produce, supporting local quality food producers and ultimately serving my customers nothing less than the very best and freshest of foods. In 1992, The Strawberry Tree became the first restaurant in Ireland to publicly announce its commitment to sourcing only free-range, organic and wild foods.

Five years ago I moved The Strawberry Tree Restaurant to Wicklow, where, I opened The BrookLodge Hotel and Spa in Macreddin Village. In the restaurant 100% of our food is either organic or wild and it is our objective to be the first certified organic restaurant in Ireland, currently we are being assessed on a final months trial with a view ( if we are successful ) to receiving this licence. To put this commitment to organic food into perspective, this year 2004 my kitchen will purchase nearly 1 million euros of organics

Euro-Toques is The European Community of Chefs and my involvement goes back many years. Euro-Toques represents 4,000 chefs throughout Europe - in Ireland; our membership is just over 200 chefs. Like every Association we have several objectives but one of our main quests and indeed one that is written into our charter is to protect the quality, diversity and flavour of our foods, indigenous food production methods and the traditional cuisines that have been established over hundred of years. We do this by working with and using produce from local producers, promoting them on our menus and also by lobbying National and European decision makers. The organisation has recently set up an office in Brussels, which is focused mainly on engaging in permanent dialogue with EU decision-makers in order to defend the quality of our foods. Our members are well-placed in that they represent not only their own interests, but also those of the producers who supply them and the consumers that they cater for.

The small artisan producer, be they organic or conventional, are vitally important to the future of our food industry and to our economy. In 2003, this sector turnover in Ireland was €400 million, compared with €90 million in 1996. Employment in this sector is approximately 3,000 (source Bord Bia). Our chefs and consumers are increasingly seeking out safe but differentiated high quality products – this differentiation is usually made on the basis of local, regional or geographic characteristics.

We believe that agriculture cannot be linear. It must and should incorporate several speeds, one of them being an agriculture of production that corresponds to a strong local identity. This form of agriculture is more craft based, more expensive but satiates the expectations of a growing number of consumers, Euro-Toques chefs, being one of them. We believe agriculture should be respectful of natural rhythms and reject excesses of scientific manipulations, which alter the quality of the product.

After 4,000 years of farming, agriculture has been industrialised for just 50 years – its yields increasingly reliant not on sound management of local resources, but on synthetic chemical inputs, intensive inputs, intensive rearing of livestock and destruction of the countryside.

Industrialisation of food started with chickens. They became the cheap threat of the modern world. The concept of Food Fjordism followed, animals became anonymous units of production confined in minimum spaces to turn over the maximum output per unit of cost. Conveyer belt farms where chemicals and industrially processed seeds and feeds go in one end and barely edible industrialised products come out the other. Environmental overkill, health risks___of which we’re all acutely aware and the derogation of flavour are a result of irrational food production methods.

When it was clear that the food revolution was not working, the search was on for a substitute. Genetically Modified food was the spider set to catch the fly – a perceived way of ensuring monstrous yields without monstrous infusions of harmful chemicals.

It is a concept 90% of which is controlled by due co-protection heavily backed by US administration. Their sights are set on world food domination and huge economic benefit. Apart from its immorality, the scientific vacuum it represents is far too frightening to contemplate.

As an organisation, there is an overwhelming concern and indeed legal responsibility amongst our membership about the future of our foods and the health of their customers and families. GM agriculture has been heralded as a breakthrough for the world. Its advocates claim it yields higher crops, uses fewer herbicides and pesticides and can provide a solution to world hunger. However, in reality, as you have heard today, there have been many stories which paint a different picture. GM crops pose a significant threat to the future of our food chain and indeed the livelihood of Eurotoque members. Once GM crops are sown, there is no way to stop them from spreading – and spreading is irreversible. No one knows the long-term effects of GM crops on either human or animal health or on the environment. Cross-pollination with non-GM crops is inevitable. Once released, genetic pollution will contaminate all our food – even organic.

Alarming predictions made by Teagasc in the past years for example speaks of a two-tier food market forging ahead with the biotech sector on one side and the organic sector on the other. The affordable food sector is the biotech one and is set to become "the largest segment of the agri-food industry" while the organic sector is envisaged to be a "very sizeable and growing" sector supplying "more discerning customers whose primary concern is healthy eating". They add, "competitiveness in organic-ecological production will be more difficult to achieve than with high-tech/bio-tech agriculture", that it will require "comprehensive research and technological support and should focus on food safety, purity and wholesomeness".

Surely, ladies and gentlemen, everyone in Ireland and indeed the world has the basic right to eat safe, healthy, unadulterated food – it should not be just for the sole privilege of those "discerning customer whose primary concern is healthy eating".

It is time we stood up and demanded that our Government direct more money specified for Research and Development into organic farming methods, rather than research into GM crop development. It is vital that organic farming be allowed to thrive and outshine the biotech sector – for all our sakes. The facts are that everyone wants to eat healthy natural foods but as the bio and manufacturing industries manipulate our crops and vegetables, continue to add additives, preservatives and now GM – it is becoming increasingly difficult to source natural foods anymore. People have to make a very conscious and mental effort to go out and source organic or natural foods, so rather than it being the easy option, it is becoming the more difficult and also the more expensive option – and this makes no sense. GM food feeds industry – not people.

Earlier this week, I contacted our Insurance brokers about the issue of GM Foods and Insurance. As we all know, the insurance industry will cover you for just about anything___ including ‘acts of God’ and even death!!! But when asked about insuring a farm growing GM crops, the response was far from straightforward. Let’s take their response on the areas of Public/Product Liability and Damage to neighbouring crops.

A farmer has a field with GM crops and this allegedly pollutes / contaminates other farmers' crops nearby. Normally if he has Public Liability/Product Cover this should in theory take care of his legal liability for injury to third parties and third party property damage. However this cover qualifies the extent of cover for Pollution, in that it must be sudden and accidental. The effect of this means that if the pollution is held to be gradual and not down to a one single identifiable occurrence then the policy will not cover the claim.

All insurance policies put a duty of disclosure on the insured party , which is that an insured party must disclose all facts that may influence a prudent underwriter in deciding to insure the risk.

Our broker stated that he felt that most Insurers would view, as a material fact that a farmer developing GM Foods would be required to disclose this to his Insurers. My reading of this is that a farmer’s failure to do this would invalidate his cover. So it is looking more likely that Insurers may, having been disclosed of the GM development, chose to exclude covering this.

Now if the insurance industry is having its doubts…why should the European Union and more particularly our Government be even considering the possibility that GM Crops be grown in our beautiful, green state.

And as a member of Euro-Toques and as an hotelier and as a restaurateur I would ask our Government to:

• Quite simply declare Ireland a GM free-zone
• Prohibit the use of GM ingredients in animal food
• Begin negotiations with the UK government in an attempt to achieve an all island GM-Free Zone.

In addition to these we would urge the Government and the Department of Agriculture to immediately invest more money into the organic farming industry.

Throughout the world Ireland is still viewed as clean and green, and people visit Ireland and buy Irish products with this in minds. Now is the time to stand up and demand that Ireland be GM Free. Once the first crops are sown, there is no turning back the clock and it will be too late to save natural food industry.

Since World War II the share of household budgets spent on food in Western Europe has dropped from about 50% to 12%. Even so, the policy of bringing down food prices continues to be pursued. We can’t go on expecting high quality, healthy food and at the same time pay less and less for it

Changing our food system requires political action. The criteria for food production today, are to keep it coming and keep it cheap – this is wrong. We must remember if price becomes the defining criteria for selling food it is also the definitive criteria for producing it. If we want good farming practices, food production in which we have confidence and food we can take pleasure in eating, we must take responsibility as farmers, retailers, caterers… and consumers.