tagged w/ World Seed Conference
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Last week marked a little-known and under-reported symposium held in Rome under the auspices of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation – the World Seed Conference. Although the subject may appear obscure, the conference theme and the issues discussed, including plant variety protection and seed improvement techniques, could not be more important to millions of farmers in the developing world.
Between the heavy acronyms and technical terms used by the UN figures, government officials and industry representatives, the conference illustrated two clear themes; firstly, the desire of Northern-based business to continue a process of enclosure of key farming inputs such as seeds by way of technology. Secondly, a push by these same companies (supported by the US and EU countries) for an extension and tightening of intellectual property rights on plant genetic resources into the national law of poorer countries.
Under the guise of innovation and progress, breeding companies suggest that seed varieties developed in laboratories in the North and then sold to poorer farmers in the South can raise yields in crops, increase nutritional values, reduce pesticide and fossil fuels use as well as conserve biodiversity. In the words of one participant at the conference, his company utilised ‘the art and science of changing the genetics of plants for the benefit of humankind.’
Advocates from industry argue that to safeguard their investment in these manipulated ‘seed innovations’ governments should use a form of legal construction (intellectual property rights) to prevent farmers from re-using and changing seeds that are a ‘product’ of agribusiness. Industry lobbyists also suggest that such monopoly rights should extend to developed plants varieties that business cannot easily control by technology – for example due to natural reproduction.
However, the patenting of seeds, extension of plant variety protection and rollout of a global regime of intellectual property rights for agricultural inputs could have serious consequences for small-scale farmers in the developing world.
Techno-Fixes and Monopoly Control
Firstly, the intellectual property regime that many participants in the Conference wish to tighten and extend to poorer countries (what one participant called ‘the development of a new industry competitiveness on foreign markets’), legally prevents farmers from sharing and saving seeds for later harvests or for future generations.
Under a key intellectual property treaty first signed in the 1960s and last amended in 1991, called UPOV, and the later WTO TRIPS, governments agreed to prevent farmers from saving or sharing seeds with only a few limited exceptions. In countries that have accepted these intellectual property regimes, small-scale farmers have moved increasingly towards the use of imported seeds, suffering from a number of adverse effects including increased debt levels, displacement and worsening food security. Making the situation worse, under intellectual property laws, some governments refuse to subsidise or even prohibit the use of seeds that do not make an ‘official list’ – most often those that were previously shared and exchanged between communities.Last week marked a little-known and under-reported symposium held in Rome under the... more
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This is the second of my monthly Monsanto Roundup reports where the news in the world of GMOs and other related issues are disseminated in order that people might have knowledge of what is going on with their food and its effect on health, environment, biodiversity, and sustainabilty.
In this issue we go over Monsanto being a water bully, "Smartstax" GM corn not having the proper environmental assessment, Monsanto being named in 50 cancer lawsuits, African chickens refusing to eat GM maize, and the Cancer Prevention Coalition calling on the FDA to ban Aspartame.
Also, we look into the World Seed Conference now taking place in Rome and the important issue of farmers being denied saving seed which is threatening global biodiversity. We also look into Monsanto in Hawaii, action on GE trees, and the effect of soy monocultures in places like Paraguay.
There is much going on in the race to own food and water as economy, climate change, and resource depletion all bring us to a crossroads where we either stand up for global food sovereignty or we lose it.
We must be prepared. Forewarned is forearmed.
So thanks for watching and supporting this endeavor.
http://current.com/groups/sustainable-agriculture/
Jan
CuratorThis is the second of my monthly Monsanto Roundup reports where the news in the world... more
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NAIROBI: Researchers say farmers in developing countries are losing one of their best hopes to limit the impacts of climate change because of growing corporate control of the seeds they plant.
The warning issued on Monday comes ahead of the World Seed Conference which opens on Tuesday at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
The researchers - from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and partners organizations in China, India, Kenya, Panama and Peru - say the diversity of traditional seed varieties is falling fast and this means valuable traits such as drought and pest resistance could be lost forever.
"Where farming communities have been able to maintain their traditional varieties, they are already using them to cope with the impacts of climate change," says project leader Krystyna Swiderska of IIED.
"But more commonly, these varieties are being replaced by a smaller range of 'modern' seeds that are heavily promoted by corporations and subsidized by governments. These seeds have less genetic diversity yet need more inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers and more natural resources such as land and water."
The researchers say that one reason for this is that while the international treaty on the protection of new varieties of plants - - known as UPOV -- protects the profits of powerful private corporations it fails to recognize and protect the rights and knowledge of poor farmers.
"Western governments and the seed industry want to upgrade the UPOV Convention to provide stricter exclusive rights to commercial plant breeders," says Swiderska.
"This will further undermine the rights of farmers and promote the loss of seed diversity that poor communities depend on for their resilience to changing climatic conditions."
The researchers also point out that in order to continue conserving and adapting their varieties, farmers also need to be allowed to freely save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds.
Technologies which restrict these customary rights -- namely Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTS) -- pose a very serious threat to genetic diversity, seed quality and the livelihoods of poor farmers.
"The farming communities that have developed and sustained a rich diversity of seeds over millennia urgently need incentives to continue sustaining them," says Ruchi Pant of Ecoserve in India.
"They need the same rights over their traditional seed varieties and associated knowledge as corporations have over modern varieties they develop and patent. The new seed laws being introduced in developing agrarian countries are posing a threat to the rights of small farmers to save, sow and exchange their traditional varieties."
end of excerptNAIROBI: Researchers say farmers in developing countries are losing one of their best... more
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