1.4 billion people around the world depend on farmer-saved seeds for their survival. The right to save seeds is a crucial part of the human right to food.
But this basic right is threatened by Terminator technology which genetically engineers plants to produce sterile seeds after first harvest and, if introduced, would force farmers to purchase seeds every year from transnational seed corporations.
If allowed to proceed, Terminator technology, would transfer control over the world’s seed supply from the hands of farmers to the monopoly control of large corporations. It would also threaten the biodiversity of agriculture and the health of the planet’s food supply.
“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,” says Rafael Alegría of Via Campesina, an organization representing over 10 million peasant farmers worldwide.
“ Preventing farmers from re-planting saved seed will increase economic injustice all over the world,” says the World Council of Churches, which has called for action to stop Terminator technology.
Tell the Canadian Government to Ban Terminator Technology
Recognizing its inherent dangers, governments attending meetings of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity created an international moratorium on Terminator technology in 2000.
The Canadian Government, however, with the help of Australia, New Zealand and some major biotechnology companies, tried in February 2005 and again in January 2006 to overthrow the moratorium.
We want our Government to put the well-being of people and the environment ahead of corporate profits.
Tell our Government to support the ban on Terminator technology.
Click here for more on Terminator Seed Technology and its implications
R E S O U R C E S
To learn more about
Terminator and
international farmer protest,
we encourage you to visit www.banterminator.org
To learn more about the Canadian and the International campaigns to ban Terminator technology and to promote food security, we encourage you to contact the following organizations:
Canadian Biotechnology Action Network
Seeds of Survival
(USC Canada)
ARTICLE: Deconstructing Dinner “The Colonization of the Canadian Farmer: Saskatchewan Organic Farmers vs. Monsanto/Bayer”
ARTICLE: Food Fight- Canada vs. Europe: We’re Forcing GMOs on People Who Fear Them
Food First: See especially Food First’s 4-page backgrounder 12 Myths about Hunger as well as their book – World Hunger: 12 Myths by Frances Moore Lappe, Joseph Collins & Peter Rosset (2006).
Canadian Council for International Co-operation:
Click on ‘Campaigns’ and ‘Canadian Food Security
Policy Group’.
FIAN International, Defending the Right to Food Worldwide: It provides information on campaigns around the world to achieve the right to food.
Rights & Democracy.On the ‘search’ tab, enter ‘food’ to see publications, etc on the right to food.
Tue, Sep 30, 2008
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