ETC Blog

Silvia Ribeiro* En 1998, el grupo ETC (entonces llamado RAFI) denunció la existencia de patentes sobre una tecnología que llamó Terminator. Se trata de una tecnología transgénica para hacer semillas suicidas: se plantan, dan fruto, pero la segunda generación se vuelve estéril, para obligar a los agricultores a volver a comprar semilla en cada estación. [...]

Read the rest of this entry

*Silvia Ribeiro Tiquipaya, Bolivia. Más de 35 mil personas respondieron a la convocatoria que lanzó Bolivia a la Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre Cambio Climático y Derechos de la Madre Tierra (CMPCC), en Cochabamba, del 19 al 22 de abril. La tercera parte vino de 142 países en cinco continentes. La mayoría de los [...]

Read the rest of this entry

Written for The Ecologist – February 2009 available online at http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=2053 Somebody somewhere has to have a cunning plan to fix our environmental problems and save the world – right? Jim Thomas sorts through the big tech ideas you’ll be reading about this year  Almost every day sees new technologies being proposed to fix old problems. [...]

Read the rest of this entry

Esteriliza las semillas y amenaza la agricultura familiar y las costumbres tradicionales Este jueves fue desestimado por la Comisión de Medio Ambiente de la Cámara de Diputados, por 15 votos a 4, el Proyecto de Ley 268/2007 —redactado por el diputado federal Eduardo Sciarra (DEM – PR)— que busca modificar la Ley de Bioseguridad para [...]

Read the rest of this entry

When patents on Terminator seeds first came to light nine years ago, even the most jaded among us were stunned by the audacious corporate greed manifested by this novel (and complex) gene engineering technique. Terminator refers to crops that are genetically modified to render sterile seeds at harvest – the equivalent of a ‘biological patent’ [...]

Read the rest of this entry

Last week the US Justice Department (DOJ) gave the green light for Monsanto’s $1.5 billion takeover of the world’s largest cotton seed company, Delta & Pine Land (D&PL) — the company that has long vowed to commercialize Terminator seeds (more on that below). The so-called “anti-trust” regulators approved the deal with a number of conditions. [...]

Read the rest of this entry

In the last few years it would have been fair to “blame Canada” for trying to overturn the international moratorium on terminator seeds. Thankfully if a new initiative in Ottawa suceeds the Canadian government may be forced to change its tune. A bill to prohibit field testing and commercialization of Terminator seed technology was introduced [...]

Read the rest of this entry

Lucy Sharratt – At 9:30 pm in Brazil, the 8th Conference of the Parties confirmed its decision on Terminator. It is now official. We see a moratorium on Terminator that is now strengthened. There is caution, however, as we celebrate since we know that corporations are still developing Terminator, that industry will not stop pursuing [...]

Read the rest of this entry

The protests of Via Campesina and Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (Movimento Sem Terra – MST) have been critical to the outcomes of this meeting. The protests continue this morning as 6000 peasant farmers are outside greeting buses of delegates as they come in. The protests have been so important in maintaining momentum and reminding delegates [...]

Read the rest of this entry

by Lucy Sharratt – Today Terminator was discussed again at COP8 – and the moratorium still holds! No country dared to challenge the consensus of last week. Some governments made slight changes to a specific part of the text but this did not relate to the moratorium – it was just enough to make us [...]

Read the rest of this entry