Firma contro l'avanzata degli OGM in Europa
People in cities and the countryside refuse THE MANIPULATION AND THE GENETIC FILING OF THE LIVING
they defend THE RIGHTS OF PEASANT FARMERS AND GARDENERS TO CONSERVE, USE, RAISE, EXCHANGE AND SELL THEIR SEEDS AND THEIR ANIMALS
An international summit of the gene is going to be held in Paris on October 28, 2008. Its focus is to highlight, under the French presidency of Europe, the contribution of genetic innovation to biodiversity and sustainable development and reflect on the guidelines for evaluating health and environmental risks associated with GMOs.
On the programme: GMOs on plates?
Does not this strengthening of the evaluation for crops hide the European Commission’s intent to accelerate imports of GMOs and suppress the right of States to oppose it, and those of industry to take ownership of biodiversity at the expense of farmers' and peoples rights?
terminator Cont’d
Under the pretext of biosafety (prevent contamination of the environment), the Transcontainer research program funded by the European Union develops hidden GMOs endowed with “suicide” genes, which will disappear from the plant before it was sold to consumers, or "zombie" plants that are sterile unless they are watered by patented chemicals.
and clandestine "GMOs"…
... While the patent on varieties imposes to make public information about the selection methods used, the Plant Variety Certificate allows keeping secret the techniques of genetic modification other than transgenesis. Plants handled with equally hazardous consequences like GMOs are sold to consumers who do not want it. For example, genetic mutations caused by nuclear radiation, cell fusion of different species, nanoparticles…
without forgetting CONTAMINATED SEEDS!
The seed industry exerts multiple pressures in order to impose a contamination threshold for seeds. However, with mass cultivation of GMOs, contamination of seeds can only increase with the cropping seasons. Accepting the slightest seed contamination is the equivalent of accepting the continuous and irreversible increase of contamination in our fields and our food.
In the end, a LEGALISED BIOPIRACY ...
The Plant Variety Certificate (PVCs) helps keeping secret the origin of plants it protects. Thus, the peasant seed varieties banned by the catalogue can be "biopirated" by the industry that can take any seed in a field, introduce a PVC and thus take control over a common good. Traditional knowledge on the therapeutic and nutritional virtues of wild plants has already been "biopirated" through the patent on the gene and its function.
.. through GENETIC FILING FILINGGENERALIZED LIFE!
While the promises of gene therapy have not been kept, the essential contribution of interventional genetics in humans is the generalisation of genetic filing, which reinforces the control populations by governments. In terms of biodiversity, GMOs are an obvious agricultural failure. But through the introduction of molecular markers, genetics created the technical tool that the industry lacked to generalise the genetic filing of plants and animals and tracked down in the fields and farms the genes marked by its patents or PVCs: it thus marks its property in order to remove the collective rights of peasant farmers on their own seeds and animals born on farms.
WE CALL UPON THE PEOPLE OF CITIES AND THE COUNTRYSIDE TO GATHER ON OCTOBER 27 IN PARIS AND ON OCTOBER 28 AT THE SUMMIT OF THE GENE TO: SAY NO TO:
- The Transcontainer programme,
- The contamination of seeds,
- The genetic filing of humans, animals and plants,
- The legalization of biopiracy, clandestine “GMOs” and the privatization of plants genetically filed by Plant Variety Certificates,
- Patents, and all private rights of intellectual property on the living
DEFEND THE COLLECTIVE RIGHTS OF PEASANT FARMERS, GARDENERS AND COMMUNITIES TO:
- Maintain, resow, exchange and sell seeds reproduced on the farm,
- Protect peasant seed varieties against biopiracy and contamination by patented genes
- Protect their traditional knowledge against biopiracy
REAFFIRMING TOGETHER THAT:
- Seeds and animals are a common and inalienable good of peasant communities that have selected, grown and bred them
- The popular know-how are an inalienable property of communities that have developed, preserved and transmitted them
WE ARE WHAT WE SOW, VOLUNTARY SOWERS OF BIODIVERSITY
We call for supporting and organizing in France, Europe and all around the world the conservation, sowing, exchanging, dissemination and protection of seeds and animal biodiversity against biopiracy and genetic contamination and traditional know-how prohibited by intellectual property rights.
First signatories: Réseau Semences Paysannes, Confédération Paysanne, Friends of the Earth,, Faucheurs volontaires, Nature & Progrès, Fondation Sciences Citoyennes
This text is a first call to launch a mobilization. It may evolve into a final appeal on the various actions, and a statement to the authorities and the public. Individuals and organizations from France and all countries wishing to sign this appeal, and / or join these events and their preparation are invited to contact: 06 66 67 53 84 and semonslabiodiversite@gmail.com