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Seed sovereignty: Resisting corporate monopolies on seed and creating (Monday, Jan. 6, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- The following press release is by Upasana Mehta with Diverse Women for Diversity in India.
Seed, the source of life, has become a source of death in the hands of
global seed and biotechnology corporations. Thousands of farmers have
committed suicide since MNCs entered the seed sector through globalisation.
Seed monopolies have transformed agriculture into a negative economy with
costs of production skyrocketing while farmers' incomes are plummeting to
below survival levels. Farmers who have had to sell their kidneys or whose
family members committed suicide gave testimonies of how seed/chemical
monopolies are squeezing profits by extracting the very life of poor
peasants.
Through the WTO TRIPs Agreement, corporations have forced changes in patent
laws creating patents on seed and life forms. Corporations like Monsanto and
Syngenta are pirating centuries of farmers' innovation and patenting rice,
cotton, mustard, corn, soya and practically all other food crops. ConAgra,
an agribusiness corporation has even patented the Indian atta.
Movements from across Asia who have been fighting TRIPs and biopiracy and
defending farmers' rights gathered at a Seminar on Seed Sovereignty
organised by Navdanya at Asian Social Forum on 5th January.
The groups joined movements from Chattisgarh such as Rupantar represented by
Ilina Sen, to celebrate the victory of forcing Syngenta to withdraw from its
attempt to pirate India rice diversity. They committed themselves to stop
patents on rice and conserve the rice diversity and knowledge of the people
of Asia.
Scientists and farmers, like Dr. Jalapathi Rao of Warrangal and Ram
Kalaspurkar of Yavatmal, Maharashtra, gave reports on the failed promise of
genetically engineered seeds, especially Bt cotton. They also expressed
anxiety about the hijack of government agencies and research institutions by
the seed and biotech corporations. Regulatory agencies are being
manipulated, courts are being influenced, and even scientific data is being
fabricated to create markets for the seed MNCs.
People's movements have been resisting this life threatening monopoly by
refusing to cooperate with patent laws that allow patents on seed and
technologies designed to trap and control farmers in a dependency treadmill.
Navdanya has also shown the way for resistance by creating alternatives
through community seed banks, biodiversity conservation, strengthening
exchange networks to save and share seed, and defending community rights.
Hundreds of local community initiatives have now flowered to keep seed in
farmers' hands.
The Bija Satyagraha Movement for n on cooperation with seed monopolies which
was initiated by Navdanya on 9th August 1999 with a message to Seed MNCs to
Quit India, continues to spread through the communities of Asia. The Bija
Swaraj Movement for Seed Sovereignty is showing that another agriculture for
Asia is possible, in which seed is free, farmers are free, knowledge is free
and life can evolve in fullness and freedom.
Upasana Mehta | |
