>>Anybody care -- or notice -- that Monsanto now controls 85 percent of the
>>nation's cotton seed market, and that's it's introduced a terminator gene
>>that
>>requires cotton growers to buy new seed year after year?
>
>The Progressive Populist in July had a cover story on "The Seed Patenters:
>Biotech Giants Force Farmers into Lockstep," along with a sidebar on
>biotechnology, which you can find on our website at
>http://www.eden.com/~reporter/98.7.html. If you'd like me to send you a
>copy, let me know by private post.
Mark Ritchie, of the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, forwarded me a couple of articles on Monsanto & its Terminator.
Doug
----
X-Sender: mritchie at iatp.org Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 04:04:04 -0500 To: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> From: "Renske van Staveren" <rvanstaveren at iatp.org> Subject: AGRICULTURE-INDIA: BIOTECH FIRMS SOW SEEDS OF DISCORD Mime-Version: 1.0
AGRICULTURE-INDIA: BIOTECH FIRMS SOW SEEDS OF DISCORD
OTC 16.07.98 02:32
NEW DELHI, Jul 15 IPS - India's agriculture scientists are hunting for the 'Terminator,' a gene developed by U.S biotechnologists, which they say threatens the livelihood of 400 million farmers and food security in this country. "We will not allow the Terminator to enter this country," Dr. R.S. Paroda, director-general of the prestigious Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) told IPS. But Dr. Paroda admitted that there is no reliable way of ensuring that the gene which 'self-destructs' does not sneak past the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources which is charged with the job of analyzing seed samples that enter the country. Scientists here fear that if it infiltrates the porous quarantine system, uncontrolled cross-pollination could kill off India's famed millennia-old cereal varieties such as the long- grained, aromatic 'Basmati' rice, already under attack by biopirates. Plant biotechnology project-director at ICAR, Dr. R.P. Sharma said there is no telling what havoc Terminator can wreak as yet. "We will have to estimate its dispersal by studying pollen characteristics -- meanwhile this country should not accept this technology or allow it past the borders," he said. Developed and patented by the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) jointly with one of the world's largest seed transnationals (TNCs), Delta and Pine Land Inc., Terminator will ensure that farmers buy seed afresh rather than set part of their harvest aside for sowing. "The seeds may give a good crop in the first year of sowing but farmers who try to store crops for replanting will find that they are sterile -- and this will make them completely dependent on seed companies," Sharma said. Such a development spells doom for Indian farmers who mostly cultivate small plots of land averaging one acre in size. Also the thousands of crop varieties they have developed with their genius will give way to monocultures promoted by U.S seed giants. Once farmers in India and other developing countries get under their yoke, the TNCs could easily program their seeds not only for self-destruction but also for the size of the crops depending on their own commercial interests in the global grain markets. "At least they can control the price of the seeds," Sharma said. What is at stake, he said, is India's independence in the area of grain production which has been the mainstay of its economy for decades now, he said. Delta and Pine Land, recently acquired by the global biotech giant Monsanto, has already announced its intention to apply Terminator technology to staple food crops like wheat, rice and sorghum of which Indian farmers produce 200 million tons annually using their own seeds. So far, the U.S-based TNC has contented itself with incorporating Terminator into easily hybridized cash-crops such as tobacco and cotton but the sheer size of the rapidly liberalizing Indian market has made it take a second look at cross-pollinated staple crops. Activists in this country are now prodding the government to make representations to the USDA through diplomatic channels and to sound a warning to other developing countries for concerted action at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Unless India leads the developing countries to rise against this terribly dangerous application of "cutting-edge" technology, seed companies will play havoc with ancient, well- perfected farming systems," says Devinder Sharma, coordinator of the independent Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security. "The Terminator is a serious threat to the right of farmers as breeders, users and managers of biodiversity, to save, exchange and improve seeds in the time-honored way," Sharma said. But the USDA has other ideas and its spokesman, Michael Ruff, is on record saying that his country's priority lies in protecting the emerging multi-billion dollar biotechnology seed industry -- meaning it is less concerned for the interests of Third World farmers and for biodiversity. Indeed, for some time now the United States has viewed farmers' rights as not being compatible with the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime that emphasizes private monopolies, which it seeks to foist on the world. =20 "Having been thwarted at international fora by world=20 opinion, the U.S has now developed a biotechnological solution in the shape of the aptly-named Terminator," Sharma said. Another well-known activist, Vandana Shiva has objections to the agriculture machismo emanating from U.S biotechnology firms which produce herbicides that go under such names as 'Assert', 'Avenge', 'Squadron', 'Prowl', and 'Pentagon'. "Monocultures and monopolies symbolize a masculinization of agriculture. The war-mentality underlying military-industrial agriculture is evident from the names given to herbicides which destroy the economic basis of the survival of the poorest farmers in the rural areas of the third world," she said. According to Shiva, agriculture based on globalization, genetic engineering and corporate monopolies on seeds will establish a food system and worldview in which TNCs will control everything grown and eaten. =20 "Corporations investing financial capital in theft and biopiracy will present themselves as creators and owners of life," she said. ICAR's Dr. Paroda describes India's policy so far as one of wait-and-see. "They are yet to try out the Terminator in any country on a large-scale. What else can we do meanwhile?" =20 Copyright 1998
The Gaia Foundation Tel: 44 171 435 5000 Fax: 44 171 431 0551
Renske van Staveren International Forum on Food & Agriculture (IFA) c/o Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) 2105 First Avenue South Minneapolis, MN, USA 55404-2505 ph: 612-870-3423 fax: 612-870-4846 rvanstaveren at iatp.org http://www.iffah.org
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> Letter: Terminator's fatal touch
> (Guardian; 06/09/98)
>
> I WAS one of the Africans invited to sign the Monsanto statement "Let the
>harvest begin" (The African gene, June 4). One of the reasons I hesitated
was
>that the names were to be published in major European papers: it has now
>become clear the aim was partly to persuade Europeans to accept
biotechnology.
>If Africans accepted it as a great breakthrough for them, Europe would
appear
>selfish to reject it. Africans are the producers and Europeans the
consumers.
>
> Of particular concern to us is the fact that Monsanto now has acquired
the
>Terminator technology. Many African farmers get their seeds from their
>governments. If governments co-operated with Monsanto and Kenyan farmers
were
>given seeds which had the Terminator gene, farmers would only produce
sterile
>seeds and would have to depend on the company forever. Woe to the citizens
too
>poor to purchase seeds. They would surely starve.
>
> One of the problems Africans face is that they do not have scientific
>information on the impact of biotechnology on their farming systems. Such
high-
>level scientific data would only be disseminated to scientists in
agricultural
>institutes. If the technology comes with a financial package for research,
>promotion and training it will be difficult for the poorly-financed African
>research institutions to decline to take the seeds and the technology to the
>trusting African farmers.
>
> Wangari Maathai.
>
> Co-ordinator,
>
> The Green Belt Movement,
>
> Nairobi, Kenya.