La Via Campesina Call to Action – Help Stop Terminator’s Return!

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From LA VIA CAMPESINA

Four years after the moratorium on Terminator technology was reaffirmed by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), proposals to develop and commercialize ‘genetic-use restriction technologies’ (GURTs) are back on the agenda for policymakers and the biotechnology industry. Terminator is a threat to food sovereignty and agrobiodiversity: ending the moratorium on Terminator will increase control of seed by transnational corporations (TNCs) and restrictions on farmers’ rights to save and plant harvested seed. Additionally, pollen from genetically-modified (GM) crops with Terminator will contaminate non-GM and organic crops, and native plant species.

GURTs (herein referred to as ‘Terminator’) are genetic engineering technologies that seek to control plant fertility. First-generation Terminator (also called ‘suicide seed’) was developed jointly by the US Department of Agriculture and Delta and Pine Land Company in the 1990s to protect the intellectual property of US agricultural biotechnology TNCs. GM crops produce sterile seeds to prevent farmers from replanting harvested seed with patented DNA. Due to international public outcry from farmers and civil society worldwide, Terminator has never been commercialized anywhere, and Brazil and India have national moratoriums prohibiting it. In 2000, the CBD recommended a de facto moratorium on field-testing and commercial sale of Terminator seeds. In 2006, pressure from La Via Campesina and its allies helped to strengthen this moratorium in Curitiba, Brazil.

Organic Seed Preservation

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Certified Organic Bowl Gourd Seeds by Dave Smith

From ORGANIC SEED ALLIANCE

MISSION:
Organic Seed Alliance supports the ethical development and stewardship of the genetic resources of agricultural seed. We accomplish our goals through collaborative education, advisory services, and research programs with organic farmers and other seed professionals.

VISION:
Seed is both our common cultural heritage and a living natural resource fundamental to the future sustainability of food production. Proper stewardship of our genetic resources necessitates not only its conservation, but careful management in a manner which allows seed to continually evolve with challenges of the environment, cultural practices of sustainable agriculture and the need to feed people. Through advocacy, collaborative education, advisory services, and research we work to restore and develop seed varieties for current needs while safeguarding invaluable genetic resources for future generations.

PROGRAMS:

Education, Information, and Advocacy:
Educational opportunities, workshops, and publications aimed at increasing genetic conservation, and improving organic seed production, plant breeding for organic agriculture, and developing healthy seed systems.

Collaborative Research:
Research that develops healthy seed systems,

Who Owns Nature?

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Certified Organic Mountain Blue Lupine Seeds by Dave Smith

From ETC GROUP

SEED INDUSTRY

Bottom line: …Patented gene technologies will not help small farmers survive climate change, but they will concentrate corporate power, drive up costs, inhibit public sector research and further undermine the rights of farmers to save and exchange seeds.

In the first half of the 20th century, seeds were overwhelmingly in the hands of farmers and public-sector plant breeders. In the decades since then, Gene Giants have used intellectual property laws to commodify the world seed supply – a strategy that aims to control plant germplasm and maximize profits by eliminating Farmers’ Rights.

Today, the proprietary seed market accounts for a staggering share of the world’s commercial seed supply. In less than three decades, a handful of multinational corporations have engineered a fast and furious corporate enclosure of the first link in the food chain.

According to Context Network, the proprietary seed market (that is, brand- name seed that is subject to exclusive monopoly – i.e., intellectual property), now accounts for 82% of the commercial seed market worldwide.

Genetic Modification Watch

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From GM WATCH

Introduction to the GMWatch video collection

We’ve trawled the web in search of the best videos on GM and related issues. You’ve sent us your favorites, and together we’ve created a fascinating and informative collection. Please let us know anything we’ve missed.

We’ve divided the videos into categories (like Must-see, Agriculture, Corporations, Latin America) and created an Index of speakers, where you can check out who’s in the videos, and an Index of GM crops and foods.

Must-see

This section contains some of the most compelling videos we’ve come across. They cover a wide variety of topics as we’ve cherry picked from all the different categories.

Among our absolute favourites is this extract from the film The Corporation about how Monsanto got Fox News to kill an investigative news report into its genetically engineered cattle hormone.

Another treat is hearing razor-sharp economist Dr Raj Patel put the case against globalized corporate agriculture, including GMOs, and its efforts to marginalise the planet-wide push for a more environmentally sensitive approach to food production (agroecology).

Agriculture

This section contains films that place GM in the wider context of corporate control of agriculture and food production and that show how farmers and consumers’ interests are being overridden.

Look out for The Future of Food, a groundbreaking documentary released in 2004, that distills the key regulatory, legal, ethical, environmental and consumer issues surrounding the troubling changes happening in the food system today… More here…
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