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Councillor snubs children's GM-free plea

Tuesday 28 October

Parents and children were due to present a loaf of bread decorated with the words ‘Healthy GM-Free Food Please’ to Councillor Crabbe at County Hall, Oxford on the morning of  Tuesday 28 October. The symbolic loaf, baked in Oxford, is a call for Oxfordshire County Council to become a GM-Free local authority and adopt policies to ensure school dinners are free from genetically modified foods. Although the presentation had been arranged with Councillor Crabbe over a week in advance, he withdrew late last night, saying that it would be “a waste of my time”. The loaf was nevertheless left with reception at County Hall, together with a letter to Councillor Crabbe expressing the children's and parent's disappointment and calling for him to support a GM-free Oxfordshire policy.

Mother of two, Lisa Morgan from Oxford, whose children were to present the loaf said, “I want my children to eat food that is free from genetically modified ingredients. There is no adequate long term testing of GM food and there’s a risk of new allergenic illnesses. We should play safe and not take a chance with GM food.”

Andrew Wood of Oxford Friends of the Earth added: “Five years ago the County Council’s catering service decided to serve non-GM food in school dinners. But this will only continue if the County Council becomes a GM-Free local authority and adopts a GM-Free policy for its schools, care-homes and the like. Otherwise the now privatised school catering companies could sneak GM food into children’s school dinners without parent’s agreement.”

The County Council is being asked to adopt a policy for GM-Free school dinners by amending its procurement policy to require that school’s exercise due diligence and excluded the use of GM foods by their caterers. The County Council has no policy on GM-Food in schooldinners. A letter from Deputy Leader of Oxfordshire County Council, Margaret Godden to Oxford Friends of the Earth, 6 August 2003 states ‘Schools have the responsibility for providing school meals and though we could advise we could not direct them to ban GM foods’. Most of the schools dinners in Oxfordshire are contracted out to County Facilities Management (CFM) which takes "all reasonably practicable steps to ensure that genetically modified food is not used in the production of  school meals" (email to Councillor Craig Simmons from Jackie Hayes, CFM, 21 October 2003.)

There are more than twenty GM-Free local authorities, and six County Councils including neighbouring Warwickshire which are GM-Free. 

County Council Meeting, 4 November 2003
GM-Free Oxfordshire Campaign