Morioka, December 5, 2003
Press Release

Iwate Prefectural Government Gave up the Field Test of GM Rice

Morioka, December 5, 2003, -Iwate Prefectural Government announced on
November 28 that they had finished the field test of GM (genetically
modified) rice, which started last April. This field test was initially a
two-year project conducted by Iwate Biotechnology Research Center (IBRC),
which was founded by the local government of Iwate in 1992 for the research
on agricultural biotechnology. Mr. Masakatsu Sasaki, the manager of
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries made this decision open,
when about 30 representatives of concerned consumers and farmers visited the
local government office in Morioka in order to submit more than 400,000
signatures against GM rice testing to the officials.

"This is a big victory for consumers and farmers from all over Japan", says
Ms. Kuniko Nagai, a board member of the Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative
Iwate, who drove the nationwide movement against the experimental planting
of GM rice in the prefecture. "We want to eat safe food. Our voice finally
moved the government", says Ms Yukiko Kumagai, the chief of the board,
Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative Iwate. "However, we have to keep on
monitoring IBRC because they are still having laboratory experiments of
other GM varieties".

The GM rice variety, Sub 29, is genetically altered to have resistance to
cold weather. As soon as it was announced by the Prefectural Government that
they would start the field test in April, consumers and farmers groups
started to work together to stop the test. Last July, they invited Mr. Percy
Schmeiser, a canola farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was forced
into a lawsuit by Monsanto over an allegation that he planted their variety
of genetically modified canola without paying a technology fee, which
Monsanto claims was patent infringement. Mr. Schmeiser says that he has
never planted GM canola and claims that it was because of cross-pollination
or direct movement of seeds. After his presentation, people in the region
became more conscious of the environmental risk of GM crops, which made the
anti-GM movement much more active.

Prior to the submission of signatures on the same day, a national meeting,
"Say NO! to GM crops" was held in Morioka, which attracted more than 400
people.

For further information, contact:
Ryoko Shimizu, Assistant Director, Organization for the Policy Making by
Citizen's Sector
E-mail: ryoko-s@mbi.nifty.com

Organization for the Policy Making by Citizen's Sector is a think tank for
the Seikatsu Club Consumers' Co-operative, which has nearly 260,000 members
in 16 prefectures in Japan.