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Contact: Amy Shollenberger, Rural Vermont 802.793.1114
Doyle Canning, GE Free VT 802.999.7502
Rural Vermont 802.223.7222

No GMO's! No Transgenicos! No OGM's!
Family Farms Not Corporate Control!

Vermont Joins Brazil, Belgium, Bangladesh and 22 other nations:
4/17 Global Farmer Protest to Resist Corporate Takeover of Agriculture

Derby Line, VT/Rock Island, PQ—Over fifty American and Canadian farmers
rallied at the border today to mark the April 17th International Day of
Farmers’ Struggle with a festive array of puppets, placards, and a giant
banner hung from the Interstate 91 overpass above the border crossing
saying no to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in English, French, and
Spanish. 79 Vermont towns have passed measures calling for a Time Out on
GMOs, and the House & Senate have now approved a measure to label all
genetically engineered seeds sold in the state. Today’s rally coincides
with farmer protests in over 26 nations around the world to stand up for
farmer’s rights and food sovereignty, and say no to GMO crops and
corporate ‘free’-trade.

“We are here at the border to demonstrate the global solidarity of farmers
in the face of corporate globalization,” said Hillary Martin, a farmer
from Burlington, Vermont. “The corporate takeover of agriculture has
impoverished farmers, starved communities, and force-fed us hazardous
genetically engineered crops, only to line the pockets of a handful of
multinational corporations like Monsanto at the expense of farmers who are
struggling for land and livelihood around the world!”

“Vermonters have spoken loud and clear in our capitol against GMOs and
they’re starting to get the drift that coexistence of GMO and
conventional means contaminated crops” said Dexter Randal, a 7th
generation conventional dairy farmer from Troy, Vermont. “But this is a
global fight. We’re here to say no to Ag policies that put family farmers
out to pasture—GMOs and new trade deals like CAFTA are just more of the
same corporate greed that is pitting farmers in a race-to-the-bottom.”

Today’s rally highlighted the fact that Vermont’s Governor, Jim Douglas,
recently signed Vermont on to the Central American Free Trade Agreement
(CAFTA), an expansion of NAFTA that farmers fear will further erode food
sovereignty and push GMOs on Central America.

Saturday’s global day of action is called by the international farmers’
movement Via Campesina (www.viacampesina.org), which marks this day to
commemorate the massacre of 19 members of the MST, the 2.5 million member
landless workers’ movement of Brazil. Farmer demonstrations are underway
in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Switzerland, and Mozambique, among 20+ other nations.

The GE Free Vermont Campaign on Genetic Engineering is a statewide
coalition of public interest groups, businesses, concerned citizens and
farmers, who have been organizing to oppose genetic engineering at the
local, state and national level. For more information: (802) 793-1114 or
www.gefreevt.org.