CGIAR

ETC Group News Release 14 July 2009 www.etcgroup.org

Enola Patent Ruled Invalid: Haven’t we Bean here before? (Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.)  On July 10, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that U.S. patent 5,894,079 (the “Enola” bean patent), which claims a yellow bean of Mexican origin, is invalid because none of the patent claims meet the criterion of non-obviousness. The case has been closely watched by civil society groups concerned about biopiracy, the patenting of life and the corporate control of food production. The Court’s clear 7-page decision argues that anyone interested in reproducing or improving Mexican yellow beans would have done exactly what the “inventor” Larry Proctor did: “plant the beans, harvest the resulting plants for their seeds, planting the latter seeds, and repeat the process two more times.”[1] The decision concludes... Read more

To Download the full report, click on Download PDF for Print-Quality version. Download PDF2 for Screen-Quality version. ETC Group Communiqué 23 January 2009 www.etcgroup.org

Issue: The main (and much-needed) goal of the Madrid High-Level meeting is to reorganize the intergovernmental management of food and agriculture. At the last food crisis in 1974, OECD states savaged the UN’s unified system and carved it into four warring factions. In the midst of today's food crisis, the four remain underfunded, weakly governed and dismayingly competitive. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the biggest “loner” in the crowd, the World Food Program (WFP), are all either suffering from harsh external reviews or major program reorganization. Complicating the problem, UN... Read more

June 2008 ETC Group Translator Ciao FAO: Another "Failure-as-Usual" Food Summit   Contrary to the opinion of many, June's Food Summit actually did something. It signaled the beginning of the end for the multilateral system as we know it. Over the next six months the food emergency - and the international institutions designed to address it - could get worse.   The full text offers a line-by-line interpretation of the Food Summit's final declaration.   Issue: During the 3-5 June 2008 World Food Summit, governments patched together sufficient funds to keep the lid on food rebellions for a few months but all the fundamental and long-term institutional and financial problems remain. In Rome, governments opted for a mythical "techno-fix" led by agribusiness in collaboration with the Gates Foundation and other philanthro-capitalists. These "klepto-mandates" are usurping the multilateral system. There is also a clear power shift away from the... Read more

Communiqué May/June 2008 Issue # 99

Patenting the “Climate Genes”… And Capturing the Climate Agenda

Issue: The world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations are stockpiling hundreds of monopoly patents on genes in plants that the companies will market as crops genetically engineered to withstand environmental stresses such as drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils, and more. BASF, Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dupont and biotech partners have filed 532 patent documents (a total of 55 patent families) on so-called “climate ready” genes at patent offices around the world. In the face of climate chaos and a deepening world food crisis, the Gene Giants are gearing up for a PR offensive to re-brand themselves as climate saviours. The focus on so-called climate-ready genes is a golden opportunity to push genetically engineered crops as a silver bullet solution to climate change. But patented techno-fix seeds... Read more

ETC Group News Release Tuesday, May 13, 2008 www.etcgroup.org  

Gene Giants Grab "Climate Genes"

Amid Global Food Crisis, Biotech Companies are Exposed as Climate Change Profiteers     A report released today by Canadian-based civil society organization, ETC Group, reveals that the world's largest seed and agrochemical corporations are stockpiling hundreds of monopoly patents on genes in plants that the companies will market as crops genetically engineered to withstand environmental stresses associated with climate change - including drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils, and more. ETC Group's report warns that - rather than a solution for confronting climate change - the promise of so-called "climate-ready" crops will be used to drive farmers and governments onto a proprietary biotech platform.   "In the face of climate chaos and a deepening world food crisis,... Read more

Svalbard's Doomsday Vault: The Global Seed Vault Raises Political/Conservation Debate The swarm of media attention focusing on today's opening of the Global Seed Vault in Norway's high Arctic may overshadow an even bigger news story. Yesterday, 26 February, the Norwegian government pledged to give 0.1% of money spent on commercial seed sales to support Farmers' Rights, and challenged other governments to do the same. The critical message is that even the most secure gene bank storage is not the ultimate solution. Governments must provide support to farmers to improve local conservation and breeding, and help them obtain access to far away seed accessions. Global food security depends upon a coherent in situ (on-farm) and ex situ (gene bank) strategy. The need to support farmers' on-farm conservation and breeding work is urgent. On the occasion of the opening of the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway, ETC Group releases a new Communique, "Svalbard's Doomsday Vault: The... Read more

Communiqué Janvier 2008 Numéro 97

Les appareils défaillants de l’alimentation = cuisine branchée de Paris

Souveraineté alimentaire – à la cartel? Parce que les États n’ont pas su gouverner, les grandes institutions multilatérales de l’alimentation et l’agriculture sont dans le pétrin. Si les États et les secrétariats internationaux ne coopèrent pas, ces institutions subiront des torts irréparables : les multinationales de l’agroalimentaire et les nouveaux philantro-capitalistes vont continuer de combler le vide du pouvoir créé par les États membres de l’OCDE depuis quelques décennies.

Le contexte : La souveraineté alimentaire, une doctrine politique issue de Via Campesina, est devenue un problème géopolitique branché. Pour la première fois depuis des... Read more

News Release ETC Group 16 August 2006 www.etcgroup.org www.banterminator.org

Monsanto Announces Takeover of Delta & Pine Land and Terminator Seed Technology (again)

In a quest to expand its corporate seed empire - Monsanto, the world's largest seed enterprise - announced yesterday that it will buy the world's leading cotton seed company, Mississippi-based (USA) Delta & Pine Land, for US$1.5 billion. Monsanto and Delta & Pine Land (D&PL) together account for over 57% of the US cotton seed market. With D&PL subsidiaries in 13 countries - including major markets such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and Pakistan - the takeover means that Monsanto will command a dominant position in one of the world's most important agricultural trade commodities and that millions of cotton farmers will be under increased pressure to accept genetically... Read more

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Groups in Latin America and Africa call for rejection of World Bank-GEF biosafety projects

News Release / June 27th 2006

Released by: African Centre for Biosafety - http://www.biosafetyafrica.net ETC Group - http://www.etcgroup.org GRAIN - http://www.grain.org Red por una América Latina Libre de Transgénicos - http://www.rallt.org

Two World Bank projects, with funding from the GEF (Global Environmental Facility), propose to introduce genetically modified crops such as maize, potatoes, cassava, rice and cotton into five Latin American and four African countries that are centers of origin or diversity for these and other major food crops. Civil society organizations warn... Read more

The World Bank is set to secure funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for two projects that will undermine public debate and aggressively drive GM crops into the heart of peasant agriculture. The two projects, one in West Africa and the other in Latin America, will hasten the spread of GM crops into farmer seed systems and even into certain centres of origin.

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Campanha Terminar Terminator Comunicado de Imprensa 31 de março de 2006 www.etcgroup.org www.banterminator.org

Movimentos de Agricultores, de Povos Indígenas e de Organizações da Sociedade Civil ao Redor do Mundo Exigem Banimento

É oficial. Os governos na Convenção de Diversidade Biológica das Nações Unidas (CDB), de forma unânime, mantiveram a moratória internacional de facto sobre a tecnologia Terminator - plantas que são geneticamente engenheiradas para produzirem sementes estéreis na colheita. A 8ª reunião da CDB foi encerrada hoje, em Curitiba, Brasil.

"A CDB, acertadamente, rejeitou as tentativas do Canadá, Austrália e Nova Zelândia - apoiados pelo governo dos Estados Unidos e pela... Read more

The Coalition Against Biopiracy exposed the globe's nastiest biopirates and rewarded the most steadfast resistors at the Captain Hook Awards on 24 March during the meeting of the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil. This ETC Group Communique provides a detailed description of the 2006 award winners.

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Ban Terminator Campaign News Release www.banterminator.org 22nd March 2006

Terminator Seed Battle Begins: Farmers Face Billions of Dollars in Potential Costs

Curitiba, Brazil. After a week that has seen a worldwide mobilisation against Terminator technology, the issue of Suicide Seeds is about to hit the negotiating floor of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Curitiba, Brazil. Known to the CBD as GURTs (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies), Terminator crops are genetically modified to create sterile seeds at harvest so that farmers must buy new seed every season. Today the Ban Terminator Campaign, a global coalition of over 500 organisations, released new financial calculations indicating that Terminator seeds will impose a burden of billions of extra dollars in seed costs on some of the world's poorest nations.

The calculations,... Read more

The Enola bean patent case demonstrates that intellectual property challenges are not a viable means of "correcting" abuses in the patent system. It has been five years since the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture filed an official challenge of the now infamous Enola bean patent in Washington, DC. Because of bureaucratic delays and diversions, it's not over yet! ETC Group provides an update on Mexican bean biopiracy.

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ETC Group News Release Thursday, 11 August 2005 www.etcgroup.org

The Genetic Shell Game, or, Now you see it! Now you don't! Industry exploits new study on transgenic maize in Mexico

Biotech proponents are using a new scientific study - which finds no evidence of DNA contamination from genetically modified (GM) maize in one area of one Mexican state (Oaxaca) - to claim that Mexico's native maize was never threatened, and even if it was at one time, the issue has now miraculously evaporated. One representative of agribusiness in Mexico, eagerly concluded that, "this study paves the way for the commercial planting of GM maize in Mexico."(1)  

According to Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Group in Mexico: "It's no surprise that the industry is using the findings to serve its own interests - as 'proof' that contamination no longer exists and that GM crops should have free reign everywhere, even in the South's... Read more

ETC GroupNews Release18 May 2005www.etcgroup.org

Canada Denies Visa for Africa's Top Biosafety Negotiator

Montreal's status as UN's biodiversity headquarters is jeopardized

In a breathtaking display of political interference, the Canadian government has blocked entry of Africa's chief negotiator for the Cartagena (biosafety) Protocol, who was scheduled to attend UN meetings beginning next week in Montreal. The Protocol is the United Nations treaty that governs the international movement of genetically modified (GM) organisms. 

Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, the Ethiopian government's chief scientist and its representative to the Montreal-based UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) had his passport returned without the requested Canadian visa yesterday, and without explanation.  

The renowned scientist submitted his passport to the Canadian embassy on May 5 and had planned to fly to Oslo, Norway for inter-regional... Read more

ETC Group News Release 14 February 2005 www.etcgroup.org

Syngenta to let Mega-Genome Patent Lapse: "Daisy-cutter" Patent Bomb Busted

Following 72 hours of negotiations by e-mail, telephone and in-person, the Swiss Gene Giant Syngenta confirmed to ETC Group last Friday, February 11, that it would allow its multi-genome patent application covering the flowering sequences in at least 40 plant species to lapse at the European Patent Office (EPO), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and around the world. Syngenta's announcement follows a month-long campaign launched by ETC Group and supported by farmers' organizations, trade unions and other civil society organizations.

The patent was called the "daisy-cutter" after the world's largest conventional bomb, which has parachuted from US Air Force cargo planes to clear troop-landing sites in Vietnam and during the Gulf and Iraq Wars. The daisy-cutter... Read more