Italian campaign plans mass "vote" against GM food

By Robin Pomeroy

ROME (Reuters) - Italian food producers, consumers and conservation groups hope to get three million signatures in a petition drive to ban genetically modified food, a move they hope will renew Europe's rejection of biotech crops.

At a time when the companies that make the GM crops grown widely in North and South America hope that European resistance is dwindling, Italian campaigners said they were confident they could turn the tide.

"What's happening is an extraordinary experiment in participatory democracy," Mario Capanna, chairman of Genetic Rights, one of the members of the "GMO Free" coalition, said.

In hundreds of marketplaces and food fairs across Italy, campaigners have been handing out forms that look like ballot papers.

They invite people to answer "yes" or "no" to whether food production should be "genuine ... founded on biodiversity and free from GMOs."

The campaign, supported by consumer associations, agriculture lobby Coldiretti and green groups like Greenpeace and WWF, hopes to have 3 million signatures by November 15.

European consumers have expressed concern that crops whose genes have been altered in a laboratory, for example to provide higher yields, might contain hidden risks to health or the natural environment, but the issue is far less prominent in the news media than it was five years ago.

"UNDUE DELAYS"