Legambiente joins the #Buycott campaign! We interrupt the demand for GMO soybeans, palm oil and American meats. Land robbery, burning and deforestation, #NotInOurNames!
Buycott, last call for the planet
The Buycott campaign was launched by the non-profit Égalité and GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade) on 4.8.19. It then translated into a petition, with the aim of stimulating Italian consumAtors to force a turnaround with their purchasing choices.
Target supply chains are responsible for the most serious social and ecological crises. In fact, GMO soybean and oil palm monocultures constitute the primary economic movers, on a planetary level, of:
– land grabbing. Namely, the robbery of land from the local people and indigenous communities that have inhabited them for generations,
– fires and deforestation of the planet’s green lungs. In Central and South America, as in Africa and Asia.
Meat from the American continent in turn contributes to the destruction of virgin forests in Argentina as in Brazil. Which are converted into pasture areas to produce meat that is also sold in Italy, as noted.
In North America, however, meat production is very critical on both fronts of animal welfare and food safety. Due to untracked cloning and the systematic use of growth hormones, anabolic drugs, and other veterinary drugs. As well as the use of animal meal in feed. (1)
Legambiente joins #Buycott!
Legambiente joins the growing ranks of civil society representatives joining the Buycott campaign. (2) The large Italian environmental association, founded in 1980, is among other things already campaigning against the use of palm oil in biodiesel. The #NotInMyTank campaign, which we in turn joined from the beginning.
‘We wholeheartedly endorse, as Legambiente, the Buycott campaign. We need to engage consumers and make them conscious protagonists in their daily purchasing choices, on issues critical to the future of the planet.
The strong correlation between the consumption of palm oil and GMO soybeans for livestock feed, on the one hand, and the very serious phenomenon of deforestation, on the other, is evident. With the felling, in vast areas of the planet, of millions of trees that are instead crucial to maintaining biodiversity and absorbing CO2.
We need to reverse course drastically, without delay. We must stop this real havoc and implement a development model that puts agroecology, the health of citizens, and respect and the future of the planet at the center‘ (Angelo Gentili, Head of Agriculture, Legambiente).
Buycott! Campaign and petition, an invitation to all
Other associations and entities have been invited to join the #Buycott campaign! Which, it is stressed, aspires to promote awareness about the utter unsustainability of GMO soy, palm oil and U.S. meat supply chains. And thus, raise everyone’s awareness of the values of sustainable spending, inspired by short, fair and sustainable supply chains.
The planet and its inhabitants, humans and endangered species, cannot wait. It is useless to remember that ‘there is no Planet B’ unless concrete action is taken to curb the greed of Earth’s marauders. This is the only way to bring about the necessary transformations in the food supply chain to approach the
Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs).
The #Buycott! petition can be signed by following the link https://www.egalite.org/buycott-petizione/. We invite everyone to offer their own contribution, to achieve that #CriticalMass that is essential to provoke real change. United, you can win!
Thank you!
Dario Dongo and Marta Strinati
Notes
(1) See in this regard the previous articles.
– Pesticides, antibiotics and hormones in US milk, the study. Urgent need for label of origin
–
CETA, Canadian meat from cattle fed animal meal
(2) The associations and publishers who have already joined the Buycott campaign:
– Associazione Comuni Virtuosi and Disability Pride Italia,
– #CALG (Coalition Against Land Grabbing) and European Consumers,
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
