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Ag Biotech Countdown: Vital Statistics and GM Crops

Enviado por ETC Staff el

Update (June 2002)

According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) the global area devoted to transgenic or genetically modified (GM) crops has increased more than 30-fold from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 52.6 million hectares in 2001. The statistics show an extraordinarily rapid market introduction. More astonishing is the concentration in ownership and control of GM crop technology. At this point in time, GM crop technology is dominated almost exclusively by a single company, in limited geographical areas.

Cuenta regresiva de la agrobiotecnología : estadísticas de los cultivos transgénicos

Enviado por ETC Staff el

De acuerdo con el Servicio Internacional para la Adquisición de Aplicaciones de Agrobiotecnología (ISAAA, por sus siglas en inglés) el área global dedicada a los cultivos transgénicos o genéticamente modificados se incrementó más de 30 veces, de 1.7 millones de hectáreas en 1996 a 52.6 millones de hectáreas en el 2001. Las estadísticas muestran una introducción al mercado extraordinariamente rápida. Y aún más impactante es la concentración de la propiedad y control de la tecnología de cultivos transgénicos.

Sobredosis de ganancias

Enviado por ETC Staff el

Varias de las empresas farmacéuticas trasnacionales más grandes del mundo integran la Asociación Mexicana (?) de Industrias de Investigación Farmacéutica (AMIIF), la cual anunció recientemente que comenzarían "una campaña para informar de la inconveniencia de que los enfermos reciban genéricos intercambiables". (La Jornada, 13 de junio de 2002). Según ellos, esos medicamentos no son de la mejor calidad y tampoco fomentan la investigación, porque solamente usan lo que ya existía en el mercado.

Making Well People Better

Enviado por ETC Staff el

ETC Group article on the new genomics agenda appears in Beyond Cloning

ETC Group's Pat Mooney is the author of "Making Well People Better," an essay appearing in WorldWatch magazine's July, 2002 issue entitled, Beyond Cloning: The Risk of the Rush to Human Genetic Engineering and the Larger Agenda of the Human Biotech Industry. The essay is available in PDF format on this Worldwatch website, and the entire issue (July/August 2002, Vol. 15, No. 4) can be purchased for US $4.

Embarazos Transgénicos

Enviado por ETC Staff el

Jerry Rosman cría cerdos en Shelby, Estados Unidos, desde hace más de 30 años. Hace dos años los partos de sus animales disminuyeron hasta llegar a 20 por ciento de las crías que obtenía antes con sus 200 cerdas. Al comparar con los otros productores afectados, encontró una constante: todos alimentaban a sus cerdos con maíz transgénico, del tipo Bt (manipulado genéticamente insertándole el gen de la toxina de la bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis para hacerlos insecticidas).

The Stockholm Syndrome - Part II. Food Sovereignty II

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Food Sovereignty and the World Food Summit - 27 Modest Proposals

The theme for the NGO/CSO Forum during the World Food Conference in Rome in early June 2002 is Food Sovereignty – the rights of small producers to provide and of poor consumers to eat. For the fifth time since it was founded in 1945, FAO is trying to get governments to wake up to their national and global obligation to end food insecurity. Past conferences have bred platitudes without progress.

Temas relacionados: 
Patentes y Biopiratería
Terminator y Nuevos confinamientos
Relaciones Públicas / Privadas
Armas biológicas
Genómica y Biotecnología
Derechos humanos / Derechos de los Agricultores
Biodiversidad y diversidad cultural

Say No to Terminator!

The genetic modification of plants to produce sterile seeds has been widely condemned by civil society, scientific bodies, and many governments as an immoral application of agricultural biotechnology. If commercialized, the technology will prevent farmers from saving seed from their harvest for planting the following season. The aim of genetic seed sterilization is to maximize seed industry profits by destroying the right of farmers to save their seeds and breed their own crops. We cannot depend on the good will of transnational corporations to prevent Terminator seeds from becoming a commercial reality.

¡No es poca cosa!

Enviado por ETC Staff el

Las partículas nanotecnológicas penetran las células vivas y se acumulan en los órganos animales

Las discusiones sobre los peligros potenciales de la nanotecnología (que es la manipulación de la materia en la escala de un nanómetro, un milésimo de un millonésimo de metro) se han llevado a cabo puramente en el plano teórico, o bien en el mundo de la ficción de las películas de Hollywood: ¿será que los científicos podrán crear en el futuro nanorobots que se autoensamblen, programados para fabricar todo tipo de bienes comerciales, alimentos y nuevas formas de vida? ¿Qué podría pasar si se logra esto?

No Small Matter!

Enviado por ETC Staff el

Nanotech Particles Penetrate Living Cells and Accumulate in Animal Organs

Are nanoparticles polluting the environment? Researchers have just begun to ask the most basic questions about the impact of new nano-materials on human health and the environment. Evidence of nanoparticle contamination in living organisms and unanswered questions about potential dangers of new forms of carbon require urgent societal review.

Maíz trasngénico: cómo infectar al mundo

Enviado por ETC Staff el

Un reciente artículo de la compañía de marketing Bivings Group, se titula: Cómo infectar al mundo. Presenta cómo el mercadeo viral a través de Internet -entendido como mercadeo por rumores-, puede ser altamente efectivo en promover diferentes tipos de productos (¿y también políticas?)

Entre los clientes de Bivings Group se encuentran, entre otras, grandes empresas transnacionales dedicadas a la biotecnología, a la producción de sustancias químicas y petroquímicas altamente contaminantes, corporaciones petroleras, grupos financieros, consultoras, tabacaleras, productoras de alimentos y productoras de transgénicos.

El Grupo ETC responde al reciente empredimiento de la Universidad de Purdue ...

Enviado por ETC Staff el

...para promover Terminator como una tecnología de protección ambiental

Sugerir que Terminator se desarrolló como una herramienta para la bioseguridad es una estrategia cínica y revisionista de la historia. Es inaceptable y peligroso sugerir que la agricultura se haga dependiente de la esterilización genética de semillas como un método para minimizar la contaminación genética de las plantas genéticamente modificadas.

ETC Group responds to Purdue University's recent efforts ...

Enviado por ETC Staff el

...to promote genetic seed sterilization - Terminator technology - as an environmental protection technology

It is revisionist history, and a cynical strategy, to suggest that Terminator was developed as a biosafety tool.

ETC Group is alarmed and insulted by the campaign to promote Terminator as a biosafety mechanism. It is unacceptable and dangerous to suggest that agriculture is dependent on genetic seed sterilization as a method for minimizing genetic pollution from genetically modified plants.

Intellectual Property: Enhancing Corporate Monopoly and Bioserfdom

Enviado por ETC Staff el

An essay by ETC Group's Hope Shand entitled "Intellectual Property: Enhancing Corporate Monopoly and Bioserfdom", appears in Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. Edited by Andrew Kimbrell and published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology in 2202. Fatal Harvest offers a visually stunning collection of photos and essays on the myths and tragedy of US-bred industrial agriculture. It also offers a vision for a food and farming system that is socially just, ecologically and culturally diverse and sustainable.

The April Fool's Day Contest has a Winner

Enviado por ETC Staff el

"Using Terminator to halt GM seed contamination is like...Using DDT to kill the ants on your sandwich"

Some biotech companies are claiming that GM (genetically-modified) seed can best be controlled if they also apply Terminator technology to the seed. The Terminator makes the seed sterile at harvest time so that farmers have to purchase new seed every growing season. When ETC group learned that suicide seeds were being hailed as a "green" technology, we decided to hold a contest. The winner is announced today at the Biodiversity Convention in The Netherlands.

ETC group's April Fool's Day Contest - to come up with the best conclusion to the sentence, "Using Terminator to halt GM seed contamination is like..." has a winner. The global contest, which began in early February and ended on April Fool's Day resulted in more than 110 entries from 21 countries. Many hundreds more visited the special website set-up for the contest to see the answers.

The Five Gene Giants are Becoming Four

Enviado por ETC Staff el

DuPont and Monsanto - "Living in Sinergy"?

Rather than enter into a marriage that even the U.S. Government would find unpalpable, the world's two most powerful Gene Giants have decided to live in sync by sharing their proprietary agricultural biotechnologies with one another. Unless the two titans are committing to long-term monogamy, such a tech-swap is the corporate equivalent of "unprotected sex". It seems the risks in this particular union will be offloaded on farmers with fewer choices and higher prices - the corporate notion of "Fee Love"?

Captain Hook Awards 2002

Enviado por ETC Staff el

For Outstanding Achievements in Biopiracy

The Coalition Against BioPiracy (CAB)* will present its highly un-coveted Captain Hook Awards -for infamous and outstanding achievements in biopiracy - at the Biodiversity Convention in The Hague, April 8-19 2002. The previous Captain Hook Awards ceremony was held almost two years ago at the Fifth meeting of the Biodiversity Convention in Nairobi. The Coalition emphasizes that the Captain Hook awards are made possible by the work and activities of many civil society and peoples' organizations around the globe that actively monitor and resist biopiracy. The cases cited and the analysis used in selecting the award winners are by no means limited to the work of the Coalition Against Biopiracy.

Ban Terminator before it's too late

Enviado por ETC Staff el

A UNITED NATIONS conference in the Hague next week (April 02) offers the UN a critical opportunity to ban 'Terminator' seeds before they are commercialised in farmers' fields, warns an alliance of campaign groups.

The ETC group, Berne Declaration and ActionAid are among many groups urging delegates at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 'COP6' conference to heed global opinion and ban the commercialisation of crops modified to produce sterile seeds - known as 'suicide seeds' or 'Terminator technology'.

Conquering Nature ...and Sidestepping the Debate over Biotech and Biodiversity

Enviado por ETC Staff el

Still More on the Mexican GM Maize Scandal

Nature magazine’s flip-flop today (April 2002) over the testing protocols involved in determining GM maize contamination in Mexico - the Centre of Genetic Diversity for the vital food crop - is just the latest in a string of absurdities as the scientific community struggles over what to do as genetically-modified germplasm invades the genetic homelands of the world’s food supply.

Biopiracy+10

Enviado por ETC Staff el

+ Captain Hook Awards 2002

On the 10th anniversary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), ETC group concludes that the CBD has failed to establish meaningful regulations to stop biopiracy. Biopiracy refers to the appropriation of the knowledge and genetic resources of farming and indigenous communities by individuals or institutions seeking exclusive monopoly control (usually patents or plant breeders' rights) over these resources and knowledge.

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