Riva City Council Addresses GMOs and Food Safety Concerns
For centuries, humans have consumed foods produced by selecting species linked through pollinations or cross-brethings. Today, it is possible to cross a strawberry with a fish, for example, to enable the strawberry to grow even in cold climates.
This occurs through techniques that intervene on the genetic makeup of living beings, called biotechnologies. With genetic engineering, it has become possible in laboratories to create crosses that are impossible in nature.
Thus, genetically modified foods have been developed: giant pigs, salmon with mouse genes, slow-ripening tomatoes, stinging-proof bees, super-nutritious eggs, transgenic soy and rice, herbicide-resistant sugar beets…
Questions about the safety of genetically modified foods
“But do these foods contain the same nutritional substances as the original ones?” — asked, and still asks, as a good doctor, Doctor Pietro Bertoldi, a Green municipal councilor in Riva.
And furthermore: “Can they potentially pose health risks to humans? What serious harmful repercussions might we face in the future on our ecosystem with the spread of new GMOs (genetically modified organisms)?”
Regarding these questions, Doctor Bertoldi explains that no one can give a definitive answer. “There is a possibility that genetically modified food products could be harmful to humans, that new allergies might develop, that new types of viruses and bacteria could spread, that toxic and carcinogenic substances could be produced, that the nutritional values of foods could be altered, and that there could be effects on the immune system and reproductive functions.
This is the reason behind the motion that, as early as December 1999, I and my colleague Rocco Frizzi proposed to the Riva council, gaining broad consensus.
City council activities and future initiatives
Among the commitments conveyed by the council to the mayor and the Executive, there was not only the general request to activate measures for consumer protection and to promote alternative options in the food sector (primarily organic products: which were recommended for public canteens).
There was also a request to allocate funds necessary to organize an informational conference in Riva for the population, merchants, food sector technicians, doctors, and schools.
The goal of this conference, thanks also to a committee where Doctor Bertoldi worked in harmony with assessore Luigi Marino, who was immediately enthusiastic about the project, has now been achieved.
And for a Municipality to propose to citizens an in-depth discussion about what they find on their plates and in agriculture is truly a novelty. It means that even if the “engines of the economy” are far from our small community, even a Town Hall can contribute in some way to raising awareness on hot-button issues.
The appointment is set for next Saturday at the Palazzo dei Congressi, at 9 a.m. Four experts (see separate sheet) will speak about what we eat and why.
