Submitted by ETC Staff on
Please join the international campaign to BAN TERMINATOR. Terminator refers to plants that are genetically modified to render sterile seeds at harvest. Terminator technology was developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the United States government to prevent farmers from saving and re-planting harvested seed. (More background information on Terminator)
Terminator is back! Although Terminator seeds have not been commercialized or field-tested, tests are currently being conducted in greenhouses in the United States. Governments and corporations are pushing hard to commercialize Terminator seeds.
"Terminator is a direct assault on farmers and indigenous cultures and on food sovereignty. It threatens the well-being of all rural people, primarily the very poorest." - Rafael Alegria of Via Campesina, an organization representing over 10 million peasant farmers worldwide.
Currently there is an international de facto moratorium on Terminator at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. But the moratorium is now under attack.
Two upcoming meetings of the CBD where Terminator is on the agenda - the Working Group on Article 8 (j) in Granada, Spain January 23-27 and the 8th Conference of the Parties to the CBD in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil March 20-31 2006 - offer important opportunities to strengthen the moratorium. The build-up to these meetings is also an important opportunity to encourage governments to establish national prohibitions on Terminator technology - just as Brazil and India have done. Corporations will not stop efforts to commercialize Terminator until governments prohibit the technology.
The Ban Terminator Campaign seeks to promote government bans on Terminator technology at the national and international levels, and supports the efforts of civil society, farmers, Indigenous peoples and social movements to campaign against it.
The Ban Terminator Campaign's steering committee:
AS-PTA (Assessoria e Servicos a Projectos em Agricultura Alternativa)
ETC Group (Action group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration)
GRAIN
Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism
ITDG (Intermediate Technology Development Group)
Pesticide Action Network - Asia and the Pacific
Third World Network
Via Campesina
Please join the Ban Terminator Campaign! Your action is needed!
For more information: contact@banterminator.org; www.banterminator.org