"In India, where there are nearly 100 million operational holdings, denial of plant-back rights or the use of the terminator mechanism will be disastrous from the socio-economic and biodiversity points of view, since over 80% of farmers plant their own farm-saved seeds."
Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, former independent chairman of the FAO Council and recipient of the World Food Prize, [SWAMINATHAN, 1998; Biotechnology and Development Monitor, No. 36, p. 6-9, 1998]
"The centuries old practice of farmer-saved seed is really a gross disadvantage to Third World farmers who inadvertently become locked into obsolete varieties because of their taking the 'easy road' and not planting newer, more productive varieties."
Harry Collins, Delta and Pine Land's Vice-President for technology transfer ['New Technologies and Modernizing World Agriculture', an unpublished paper distributed by Dr. Collins during a debate on Terminator held 12 June 1998 during the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in Rome]
"Patenting genes the same way you patent software robs Third World farmers. While they and their ancestors developed almost all important food crops, transnational corporations can now blithely patent those crops and make mega profits without in any way compensating traditional farm communities for the original research. Genetic resources taken freely from southern countries will be returned to them later as pricey patented commodities. 'Terminator' technology is a way of locking this 'bio-piracy' into the very genes themselves."
Anuradha Mittal and Peter Rosset of Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy ['Seeds Sow Controversy', San Francisco Chronicle, 1 March: A21, 1999
http://www.pacificsites.com/~lakenews/Food.html]
"Termination of germination is a means for capital accumulation and market expansion. However, abundance in nature and for farmers shrinks as markets grow for Monsanto. When we sow seed we pray, "May this seed be exhaustless!" Monsanto and the USDA on the other hand are stating, "Let this seed be terminated so that our profits and monopoly is exhaustless.
There can be no partnership between the terminator logic, which destroys nature's renewability and regeneration and the commitment to continuity of life held by women farmers of the Third World. The two worldviews do not merely clash - they are mutually exclusive. There can be no partnership between a logic of death on which Monsanto bases its expanding empire and the logic of life on which women farmers in the Third World base their partnership with the earth to provide food security to their families and communities."
Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths and the Masculinisation of Agriculture
by Dr. Vandana Shiva, Workshop on "Women's Knowledge, Biotechnology and International Trade - Fostering a New Dialogue into the Millennium", The International Conference -"Women in Agriculture", Washington, 28 June - 2 July 1998. From: http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/terminator.html
"Terminator technology would force poor farmers to buy new seed each season from corporations whose control over seeds is already substantial - just 10 corporations control more than 50% of global seed sales. Progressio's 'Say no to Terminator seeds' campaign is vital in putting pressure on the UK government to do whatever is necessary at the 2008 CBD meeting to ensure this potentially devastating technology never sees the light of day."
Michael Meacher MP
back to top
print this page
email to a friend