'Suicide Seeds' Could Spell Death of Peasant Agriculture, UN Meeting Told
by Haider Rizvi
OneWorld.net, January 26, 2006
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/126218/1/

UNITED NATIONS - Groups fighting for the rights of peasant communities are
stepping up pressure on governments to ban the use of genetically modified
''suicide seeds'' at UN-sponsored talks on biodiversity in Spain this week.

"...genetically modified crops...offer the promise of fat profits for their
developers, marketers, and political supporters while threatening farmers
with lean times and consumers with ill-health."

''This technology is an assault on the traditional knowledge, innovation,
and practices of local and indigenous communities,'' said Debra Harry,
executive director of the U.S.-based Indigenous Peoples Council on
Biocolonialism.

The group is among organizations urging United Nations experts to recommend
that governments adopt tough laws against field testing and selling
Terminator technology, which refers to plants that have had their genes
altered so that they render sterile seeds at harvest. Because of this trait,
some activists call Terminator products ''suicide seeds.''

Developed by multinational agribusinesses and the U.S. government,
Terminator has the effect of preventing farmers from saving or replanting
seeds from one growing season to the next.

The product is being tested in greenhouses throughout the United States.
Opponents fear it is likely to be marketed soon unless governments impose a
ban.

''Terminator seeds will become a commercial reality unless governments take
action to prevent it,'' said Hope Shand of the Canada-based Action Group on
Erosion, Technology, and Concentration (ETC Group).

If commercialized, activists said, Terminator would force farmers to return
to the market for seeds every year, adding to their annual costs. This also
would spell the end of locally adapted agriculture through seed selection,
because most farmers in the world today routinely save seeds from their
harvest for replanting.

''This seed technology is a fundamental violation of the human rights of
indigenous people,'' Harry said of Terminator. ''It is a breach of the right
of self-determination.''

Environmental and consumer advocates also have said that genetically
modified crops--ranging from Terminator to ''Round Up Ready'' varieties
designed to survive the heavy duty herbicide Round Up--offer the promise of
fat profits for their developers, marketers, and political supporters while
threatening farmers with lean times and consumers with ill-health.
''The promise of increased profit is too enticing for industry to give up on
Terminator seeds,'' says Lucy Sharratt of the International Ban Terminator
Campaign.

The issue has pitted some governments against their citizens. Canadian
government officials at a UN meeting in Bangkok last year pushed for
language allowing the field testing and sale of Terminator. But they backed
down in response to strong public criticism at home.

For their part, biotech companies have enjoyed limited success in trying to
influence governments' policies in favor of using Terminator seeds. Their
main argument: that Terminator's higher cost is more than compensated for in
improved crop yield and quality at harvest time.

Governments generally have distinguished between different types of genetic
modification. Many--especially those in industrially developing regions of
the world--have resisted pressure from the biotechnology industry and the
U.S. government and maintain a strong stand against Terminator.

The government of Brazil--the world's fifth most populous country and a
major agricultural producer--last year enacted a law that prohibits the use,
registration, patenting, and licensing of genetically modified (GM) seeds.
India, a predominantly agrarian nation and home to more than one billion
people, has done the same.

However, a number of governments have agreed with industry statements that
other genetic modifications can play a significant role in combating hunger
at negligible risk to the environment.

Even so, a 100-page report released last week by Friends of the Earth (FoE),
a leading international environmental group, concludes that only a handful
of countries have introduced and increased the use of genetically modified
crops--and then again, largely because of aggressive lobbying by the biotech
industry.

Entitled ''Who Benefits from GM Crops?'' the report says that after 10 years
of GM crop cultivation, more than 80 percent of the area cultivated with
biotech crops is still concentrated in only three countries: the United
States, Argentina, and Canada.

In other countries--including Paraguay and Brazil, GM crops were planted
illegally and in Indonesia, they were planted after government officials
were bribed, FoE said.

This week's UN talks in Madrid are scheduled to continue until Friday.
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