Delta & Pine Land brochure about Terminator technology
Submitted by Dru Oja Jay on
Submitted by Dru Oja Jay on
Submitted by Veronica Villa on
Your Holiness:
With the utmost respect, we address Your Holiness regarding a topic of grave concern and global scope—genetically modified (GM) crops and their impact on peoples and on nature, land, water, seeds, and economies, especially those of the Global South.
Submitted by Veronica Villa on
Introduction
Almost twenty years of genetically modified crops… What have we gained?
Contrary to what companies promised, official statistics from the United States—the leading producer of genetically modified (GM) crops in the world—demonstrate that the truth of GM crops is that they produce less per hectare than the seeds that were already available on the market, but have resulted in an exponential increase in the use of agritoxins.
Submitted by Veronica Villa on
MEDIA RELEASE
Start of an international call to stop genetically engineered organisms
spreading into the environment! Coalition calls for the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to take action.
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
Push to Pass Suicide Seeds Legislation Could Come While Deputies Dance
Sign the petition to stop it!
Brazilian civil society organizations warned yesterday that a 2007 bill to end Brazil’s ban on Terminator seeds could soon be on the move (again) in the Brazilian Congress. While two bills have been on the congressional agenda for several years, a 2007 bill (PL 268/2007, filed by Rep. Eduardo Sciarra – PSD party) began moving through the Congress last July and came to a head last October. The legalizing of Terminator in Brazil would have global implications, including as a violation of the United Nations moratorium on Terminator technologies, in place since 2000 at the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
Confronted with 35,000 institutional and individual signatures on a petition growing by several hundred an hour, Brazil’s Judiciary Commission agreed to take the Pro-Terminator Bill off the agenda this week leaving open the possibility that the bill will not be passed until Congress reconvenes in early February. However, the Judiciary Commission also determined to sit again next Tuesday and could continue meeting even Wednesday and Thursday before adjourning for Christmas. The Chair of the Commission has reiterated his commitment to block the contentious bill but CSO observers understand that a majority of Commission members are in favor of the suicide seed legislation and could, regardless of a formal agenda, call for a vote at any meeting. Brazilian allies both in the Commission and among the civil society organizations attending the negotiations say that representatives and government officials have been shocked by the scale in ferocity of global opposition to the proposed legislation.
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
After promising on World Food Day (October 16) to block legislation that would legalize the planting of Terminator seeds in Brazil, the country’s Judicial Commission is set to approve suicide seeds as a Christmas gift to Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta.
Submitted by Veronica Villa on
Farmers produce food, not carbon. Yet, if some of the governments and corporate lobbies negotiating at the UN climate change conference to be held in Warsaw from 11-22 November have their way, farmland could soon be considered as a carbon sink that polluting corporations can buy into to compensate for their harmful emissions.
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
In a great bit of news for World Food Day, a key Brazilian congressional committee today withdrew the consideration of legislation that would have allowed the sale and use of Terminator Technology, also known as suicide seeds. The Constitutional Commission of the Brazilian House of Representatives was slated to consider Bill PL 268/2007 this morning, but decided instead to withdraw it from the agenda – taking into account the social concerns raised by the national and international mobilization in opposition to the bill. Further, the President of the Commission pledged that as long as he is at the helm, he will not allow the bill back on the agenda.
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
As the United Nations celebrates World Food Day October 16, in Brazil, a Constitutional Commission is slated to rule on pending legislation that would permit the use of Terminator technology (a.k.a. suicide seeds), upending the country’s 8 year-old ban and violating the international moratorium on the quintessential anti-farmer technology. Meanwhile, on October 17, in Iowa (USA), scientists from Syngenta and Monsanto, two companies that both have Terminator patents, will receive the World Food Prize for their “breakthrough” achievements in developing genetically modified crops.
Submitted by Veronica Villa on
This week, as we celebrate World Food Day 2013 – whose theme is "sustainable food systems for food security and nutrition” – a serious threat to food sovereignty and food and nutrition security in Brazil has come to light. A bill, ( PL ) No. 268/2007 filed by Rep. Eduardo Sciarra - PSD / PR, allows exemptions to the ban on Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs, commonly referred to as Terminator) imposed by Brazil’s Biosecurity Law and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. If passed, this bill will allow the production and marketing of GM “suicide” seeds – seeds genetically engineered to be sterile in the second generation – forcing farmers to buy new seeds for every planting cycle.
Submitted by Kathy Jo Wetter on
Yesterday, ETC Group reported on the scheduled meeting of Brazil's Judicial Commission to rule on the constitutionality of a bill that would allow the planting of Terminator plants (i.e., plants engineered to be sterile in the second generation) in Brazil. While the Judicial Commission did meet, it postponed the discussion on the Terminator bill until next week.
Submitted by Veronica Villa on
Today Brazil’s Judicial Commission is slated to rule on the constitutionality of a proposed bill that will allow genetically engineered sterility in seeds, known as Terminator Technology. If the bill gains the approval of the Commission, it could quickly come to a vote in Congress. Brazil’s national law to ban Terminator has been under threat since it was enacted 8 years ago, but this most recent congressional action has caused the most serious alarm since it could swiftly overturn the ban.
Submitted by Anonymous on
The Food Systems We Don’t Know We Don’t Know – Fifty years ago, at the first World Food Congress in June 1963, the UN was told that, “We have the means, we have the capacity, to wipe hunger and poverty from the face of the earth in our lifetime – we need only the will.” These words have been the mantra of every food conference since. Yet governments still face major gaps in their knowledge about our food supply and consumption. This became horribly apparent in 2007 when governments failed to recognize that a global food crisis was at hand. Fifty years after policymakers committed to end hunger they need to sort out why governments don’t have the means, the capacity, or the will to end hunger.
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
In this Communiqué, ETC Group identifies the major corporate players that control industrial farm inputs. Together with our companion poster, Who will feed us? The industrial food chain or the peasant food web?, ETC Group aims to de-construct the myths surrounding the effectiveness of the industrial food system.
Submitted by Joëlle Deschambault on
News Release
September 9th, 2013
ETC Group publishes its 111th Communiqué today. The 40-page report – “Putting the Cartel before the Horse…Who Will Control Agricultural Inputs?” – provides market data on the world’s major corporate players involved in food and agriculture and analysis of key sectors in the corporate food chain.
Submitted by ETC Staff on
Recent developments in synthetic biology could impact the $22 billion global flavour and fragrance market and the livelihoods of producers of natural commodities. These developments impact the sustainable use of biodiversity and fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the genetic resources that produce natural plant products. The worlds largest producers of food ingredients, flavors and fragrances are all now partnering with Synthetic Biology companies to develop biosynthetic versions of key high value natural commodities such as saffron, vanilla, vetiver and patchouli - replacing botanical sources.
Submitted by ETC Group on
Synthetic biology goes beyond transferring genes between species to constructing entirely new, self-replicating microorganisms that have the potential to convert any biomass or carbon feedstock into any product that can be produced by fossil carbons – plus many more.From the perspective of synthetic biology, the resource base for the development of marketable “renewable” materials (that is not from petroleum) is not the world’s commercialized 23.8 % of annual terrestrial biomass, but also the other 76.2 % of annual terrestrial biomass that has, thus far, remained outside the market economy. Synthetic biology has already attracted the attention of the United Nations and governments. The technology was on the agenda of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity that met in Hyderabad, India in mid-October 2012, with governments agreeing to continue monitoring the technology and report back to future meetings of the CBD.
Submitted by Silvia Ribeiro on
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