Terminator seeds will mean a few global corporations totally control the world food supply
Who controls our seeds, local farmers who have collected their seeds for generations or greedy global corporations like Monsanto?
Under pressure from big commercial farms, the Brazilian parliament is to hold a vote that will allow companies like Monsanto, Bayer, and others to start selling so-called ‘suicide seeds’ to farmers. The genetically modified seeds can only be used once, forcing small farmers into buying seeds from Monsanto or others over and over again — literally forever.
The use of these seeds is essentially prohibited under a UN treaty on biodiversity which over 193 countries, including Brazil, have signed. But if Brazil overturns its own ban then this will have huge consequences. Poor, small farmers could be locked into a cycle of endless debt and dependency — and the rest of the world could be handing control of the global food supply to a handful of companies. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
The parliamentary proposal has already been approved by some key committees and is now hurtling its way to a full parliament vote, which could happen in just a few weeks time — meaning we don’t have long to stop this proposal.
Please sign the petition to Brazilian lawmakers urging them to reject any attempt to overturn the ban on terminator seeds. Please share and tweet.
If the ban is scrapped, huge commercial farms will be allowed to use super fast-growing GMO crops, damaging neighbouring farms through cross-fertilisation.
Small farmers will be forced to use the same terminator seeds to compete — tying them into buying seeds from the likes of Monsanto forever.
Farmers who in the past, saved their seeds, will no longer be able to, as the terminator gene within the seeds means their crops no longer produce viable seeds. They are forced, they have no coice, to buy seed from global corporations like Monsanto.
As the climate becomes more chaotic, we need greater diversity, not less, seeds that are adapted through generations of selection and seed selection, to the local environment.
If Brazil allows these dangerous seeds to be used, it will spark a global domino effect, as country after country race to change laws in order to stay competitive. Brazil’s decision could set the stage for the global ban on terminator seeds to be overturned when the UN treaty is renewed this year. It’s absolutely vital that we stop this move in its tracks.
We’ve come together in the past to take on huge agribusinesses like Monsanto before. We’re fighting Bayer and Syngenta in their attempts to overturn Europe’s ban on bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. We’ve taken on the might of Monsanto when we campaigned to stop it receiving the World Food Prize.
Now we need to demand that Brazilian lawmakers reject attempts by giant corporate landowners and agribusinesses to allow the use of these dangerous suicide seeds.
Please tell Brazilian lawmakers that the world is depending on them to keep the ban on ‘terminator seeds’.
Contrary to the view peddled by global corporations like Monsanto, it is not industrial agriculture and agribusiness that feeds the world, it is ordinary farmers who from harvest to harvest save their seeds.
In Peru, indigenous people have reclaimed one million hectares, hectare by hectare. Practising traditional agriculture, they are producing 40% of the food in Peru.
More than half of the food we eat in the world, is produced by the people themselves, not by agribusiness, not with the help of Monsanto.
Cities can be self-sufficient in food.
In Geneva, a system called foodscaping, neighbours agree amongst themselves, what they will grow, surpluses can then be swapped.
One of the schemes Transition Network supports is identifying gardens not in use. Volunteers offer to grow vegetables in the garden, bring it back into productive use, share the produce with the householder.
