Greenpeace Stirs The Pot

Newcastle Herald

Saturday October 11, 2003

By NEIL KEENE

GREENPEACE campaigners yesterday stormed a chicken feed mill in Cardiff, chaining themselves to gates and abseiling from a 30-metre high silo to protest the use of genetically modified crops.

Carloads of activists, many clad in chicken suits, drove into Ingham Enterprises' main feed mill about 9am, locked the gates behind them and chained themselves to the entrance.

Some tied themselves to their vehicles to deny access to the mill's loading bay, while others scaled the company's silo.

Two protesters abseiled off the structure to hang an eight-metre sign reading ``Ingham putting the GM in chicken".

Greenpeace sparked the action to protest the use of genetically modified (GM) soy in chicken feed.

It said Ingham used GM crops imported from the United States.

Campaigner John Hepburn told The Herald that a legislative loophole allowed companies to sell products without declaring the use of GM ingredients in the food chain.

``Most people think there isn't much GM food out there because there's no labels on the products and yet we have got hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the stuff coming into the country," he said.

Mr Hepburn said the long-term effects of GM food were still largely untested.

However, an Ingham spokesman said the use of GM ingredients in chicken feed did not compromise the ``absolute GM-free" status of livestock or livestock products.

``There has been a fair bit of research in this area and there's no scientific evidence to suggest that animals fed with GM soymeal are any different to animals fed on a GM-free diet," he said.

Seven activists, some from as far as New Zealand, have been charged by police with trespass.