Saving The World's Seeds

Would you start by talking about some general issues surrounding globalization.

Dr. Vandana Shiva: Well those of use who are concerned about the globalization that has been contrived and yet made to look as if it is a natural evolutionary step, we are concerned about the injustice and undemocratic system on which it is based.

And everything we said, fifteen years ago, when these rules were being put in place, very artificially, under GAT and then became the WTO rules, or on the financial side as the instrumentalities and conditionalities of the World Bank and IMF, what we said fifteen years ago turns out not to have been an exaggeration but an underestimation of the devastation of both nature, society and economies.

I had talked about the WTO agreement on agriculture as the death knell for Indian farmers. Every year 16,000 farmers are being killed. They are taking their lives, but I don¹t think they are taking their lives. It is that they are being pushed to the edge of survival - through the indebtedness that is an inevitable result of turning them into a market for Monsanto seed, and, on the other hand disposable items, when Cargill and ConAgra have to dump subsidized grain through a liberalized agreement.

When I started to fight intellectual property rights in the WTO, I was concerned about patents on life. And seed patents now we can see what they are doing.

American farmers are being harassed, fined for three million dollars, and the crime is seed saving?

What could be a worse situation for humanity? To turn something as valuable as saving seeds for the future into a criminal activity.

Similar laws have just been passed in India, two weeks ago.

I think anyone who doesn't resist this kind of globalization is not being fully human, is not exercising their duties.
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More of this interview at the link. And what an opportune moment for the World Bank president to come out to say that food prices will he high until 2012 as if he really knows that. I have also read that pressure is being put on Europe to adopt GM foods. If I didn't know any better I would think this has all been planned to get a desired result for all of the world organizations working in tandem including The World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, and governments of this world intent on keeping poor people down by controlling their food and water. Strangely, the song "Everybody Wants To Rule The World " is in my head now.

Thankfully there are people like Dr. Vandana Shiva and others speaking truth on this. We have to do so as well. We cannot allow this to be the future for our children. So if you have an organization that deals in organic seeds or seeds free of chemicals post it here. Let's really give some information to people to show them they have options and that we do not have to be enslaved to corporate BS any longer.

It is a threat to our health, other species, our environment, and our planet. Those who control the seeds and the water control YOU. I say, no more, and I will be relentless about it here.