{"id":17212,"date":"2012-02-06T12:19:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T12:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=17212"},"modified":"2012-02-06T12:19:44","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T12:19:44","slug":"the-seed-emergency-the-threat-to-food-and-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/02\/the-seed-emergency-the-threat-to-food-and-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Seed Emergency: The Threat to Food and Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patenting seeds has led to a farming and food crisis – and huge profits for US biotechnology corporations.<\/em><\/p>\n

The seed is the first link in the food chain – and seed sovereignty is the foundation of food sovereignty.\u00a0If farmers do not have their own seeds or access to open pollinated varieties that they can save, improve and exchange, they have no seed sovereignty – and consequently no food sovereignty.<\/p>\n

The deepening agrarian and food crisis has its roots in changes in the seed supply system, and the erosion of seed diversity and seed sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Seed sovereignty includes the farmer’s rights to save, breed and exchange seeds, to have access to diverse open source seeds which can be saved – and which are not patented, genetically modified, owned or controlled by emerging seed giants. It is based on reclaiming seeds and biodiversity as commons and public good.<\/p>\n

The past twenty years have seen a very rapid erosion of seed diversity and seed sovereignty, and the concentration of the control over seeds by a very small number of giant corporations. In 1995, when the UN organised the Plant Genetic Resources Conference in Leipzig, it was reported that 75 per cent\u00a0of all agricultural biodiversity had disappeared because of the introduction of “modern” varieties, which are always cultivated as monocultures. Since then, the erosion has accelerated.<\/p>\n

The introduction of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement <\/a>of the World Trade Organisation has accelerated the spread of genetically engineered seeds – which can be patented – and for which royalties can be collected. Navdanya <\/a>was started in response to the introduction of these patents on seeds in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade<\/a> –\u00a0a forerunner to the WTO – about which a Monsanto representative later stated: “In drafting these agreements, we were the patient, diagnostician [and] physician all in one.”\u00a0Corporations defined a problem – and for them the problem was farmers saving seeds. They offered a solution, and the solution was to make it illegal for farmers to save seed – by introducing patents and intellectual property rights<\/a> [PDF] on those very seeds. As a result, acreage under GM corn, soya, canola, cotton has increased dramatically.<\/p>\n

Threats to seed sovereignty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Besides displacing and destroying diversity, patented GMO seeds are also undermining seed sovereignty.\u00a0Across the world, new seed laws are being introduced which enforce compulsory registration of seeds, thus making it impossible for small farmers to grow their own diversity, and forcing them into dependency on giant seed corporations.\u00a0Corporations are also patenting climate resilient seeds evolved by farmers –\u00a0thus robbing farmers of using their own seeds and knowledge for climate adaptation.<\/p>\n

Another threat to seed sovereignty is genetic contamination.\u00a0India has lost its cotton seeds because of contamination from Bt Cotton – a strain engineered to contain the pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis<\/em> bacterium.\u00a0Canada has lost its canola seed because of contamination from Roundup Ready canola. And Mexico has lost its corn due to contamination from Bt Cotton.<\/p>\n

After contamination, biotech seed corporations sue farmers with patent infringement cases, as happened in the case of Percy Schmeiser<\/a>. That is why more than 80 groups came together and filed a case to prevent Monsanto from suing farmers whose seed had been contaminated.<\/p>\n

As a farmer’s seed supply is eroded, and farmers become dependent on patented GMO seed, the result is debt. India, the home of cotton, has lost its cotton seed diversity and cotton seed sovereignty.\u00a0Some 95 per cent\u00a0of the country’s cotton seed is now controlled by Monsanto – and the debt trap created by being forced to buy seed every year –\u00a0with royalty payments –\u00a0has pushed hundreds of thousands of farmers to suicide<\/a>; of the 250,000 farmer suicides, the majority are in the cotton belt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seeding control<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even as the disappearance of biodiversity and seed sovereignty creates a major crisis for agriculture and food security, corporations are pushing governments to use public money to destroy the public seed supply and replace it with unreliable non-renewable, patented seed – which must be bought each and every year.<\/p>\n

In Europe, the 1994 regulation for protection of plant varieties forces farmers to make a “compulsory voluntary contribution” to seed companies.\u00a0The terms themselves are contradictory. What is compulsory cannot be voluntary.<\/p>\n

In France, a law was passed in November 2011, which makes royalty payments compulsory.\u00a0As Agriculture Minister Bruna Le Marie stated: “Seeds can be longer be royalty free, as is currently the case.” Of the 5,000 or so cultivated plant varieties, 600 are protected by certificate in France, and these account for 99 per cent\u00a0of the varieties grown by farmers.<\/p>\n

The “compulsory voluntary contribution”, in other words a royalty, is justified on grounds that “a fee is paid to certificate holders [seed companies] to sustain funding of research and efforts to improve genetic resources”.<\/p>\n

Monsanto pirates biodiversity and genetic resources from farming communities, as it did in the case of a wheat biopiracy case fought by Navdanya with Greenpeace, and climate resilient crops and brinjal (also known as aubergine or eggplant) varieties for Bt Brinjal.\u00a0As Monsanto states, “it draws from a collection of germ-plasm that is unparalleled in history” and “mines the diversity in this genetic library to develop elite seeds faster than ever before”.<\/p>\n

In effect, what is taking place is the enclosure of the genetic commons of our biodiversity and the intellectual commons of public breeding by farming communities and public institutions. And the GMO seeds Monsanto is offering are failing.\u00a0 This is not “improvement” of genetic resources, but degradation. This is not innovation but piracy.<\/p>\n

For example, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa <\/a>(AGRA) – being pushed by the Gates Foundation – is a major assault on Africa’s seed sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Agribusiness<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 2009 US Global Food Security Act <\/a>[PDF] also called the Lugar-Casey Act<\/a>\u00a0[PDF], “A bill to authorise appropriations for fiscal years 2010 through 2014 to provide assistance to foreign countries to promote food security, to stimulate rural economies, and to improve emergency response to food crisis, to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and for other purposes”.<\/p>\n

The amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act <\/a>would “include research on bio-technological advances appropriate to local ecological conditions, including genetically modified technology”. The $ 7.7bn that goes with the bill would go to benefit Monsanto to push GM seeds.<\/p>\n

An article<\/a> in Forbes,<\/em> titled “Why Uncle Sam Supports Franken Foods”, shows how agribusiness is the only sector in which US has a positive trade balance. Hence the push for GMOs\u00a0– because they bring royalties to the US. However, royalties for Monsanto are based on debt,\u00a0suicidal farmers and the disappearance of biodiversity worldwide.<\/p>\n

Under the US Global Food Security Act, Nepal signed an agreement with USAID and Monsanto. This led to massive protests across the country. India was forced to allow patents on seeds through the first dispute brought by the US against India in the WTO. Since 2004, India has also been trying to introduce a Seed Act <\/a>which would require farmers to register their own seeds and take licenses.\u00a0This in effect would force farmers from using their indigenous seed varieties. By creating a Seed Satyagraha\u00a0<\/a>– a non-cooperation movement in Gandhi’s footsteps, handing over hundreds of thousands of signatures to the prime minister, and working with parliament – we have so far prevented the Seed Law from being introduced.<\/p>\n

India has signed a US-India Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture<\/a>, with Monsanto on the Board.\u00a0Individual states are also being pressured to sign agreements with Monsanto. One example is the Monsanto-Rajasthan Memorandum of Understanding, under which Monsanto would get intellectual property rights to all genetic resources, and to carry out research on indigenous seeds. It took a campaign by Navdanya and a “Monsanto Quit India” Bija Yatra<\/em> [“seed pilgrimage”] to force the government of Rajasthan to cancel<\/a> the MOU.<\/p>\n

This asymmetric pressure of Monsanto on the US government, and the joint pressure of both on the governments across the world, is a major threat to the future of seeds, the future of food and the future of democracy.<\/p>\n

______________________<\/p>\n

TRANSCEND Member Prof. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of more than 20 books and 500 papers. She is the founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, and has campaigned for biodiversity, conservation and farmers\u2019 rights, winning the Right Livelihood Award [Alternative Nobel Prize] in 1993. She is executive director of the Navdanya Trust.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patenting seeds has led to a farming and food crisis – and huge profits for US biotechnology corporations. The seed is the first link in the food chain – and seed sovereignty is the foundation of food sovereignty. If farmers do not have their own seeds or access to open pollinated varieties that they can save, improve and exchange, they have no seed sovereignty – and consequently no food sovereignty. The deepening agrarian and food crisis has its roots in changes in the seed supply system, and the erosion of seed diversity and seed sovereignty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}