From Staff Reports

Urging a boycott of food products containing genetically modified organisms, more than 100 people participated in the March Against Monsanto on May 24 in downtown Asheville.

Participants gathered for a rally on Pack Square, which was followed by a march through downtown.

“Hey, hey, ho, ho. GMOs have got to go!” they chanted.

Among the messages on the signs the protesters carried were “Monsanto, no one wants your poison food,” “Just label it” and “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

Asheville’s protest was one of more than 400 on that day around the world, challenging the unlabeled use of GMOs.

As the world’s largest chemical and agricultrual bilotechnology company, Montanto has become a lightning rod that has drawn the wrath of food safety activists, who say it puts GMOs into its food products.

The movement was launched in 2012 after a proposition failed in California that would have required mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not required GMO labeling.

Monsanto, which contends that its products are safe, has spent millions of dollar fighting mandatory labeling proposals. Experts say at least 75 percent of processed foods contain GMOs.