CGIAR

"Failure as Usual" Food Summit

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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...   Read More









Categories: Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Biotechnology, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, FAO, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, Public / Private Relations

Patenting the "Climate Genes" ...and Capturing the Climate Agenda

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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...   Read More







Categories: Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Biotechnology, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, FAO, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, Public / Private Relations

News Release: Gene Giants Grab "Climate Genes"

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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"...   Read More










Categories: Biotechnology, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, FAO, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, Public / Private Relations

Svalbard's Doomsday Vault: The Global Seed Vault Raises Political/Conservation Debate

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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 Communiqué, "Svalbard's...   Read More



Categories: Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, CGIAR, FAO, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Public / Private Relations

Food’s Failed Estates = Paris’s Hot Cuisine... Food Sovereignty – à la Cartel?

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*also available in French

Communiqué
January 2008
Issue # 97

Food’s Failed Estates = Paris’s Hot Cuisine
Food Sovereignty – à la Cartel?

Because governments have failed to govern, the leading multilateral institutions involved in food and agriculture are in deep trouble. Unless governments and international secretariats cooperate, these institutions will be irreparably damaged and the power vacuum OECD states have created over recent decades will continue to be filled by multinational agribusiness and the new philanthro-capitalists.

Issue: Food Sovereignty, the political philosophy introduced by Via Campesina, has become a hot geopolitical topic. For the first time in decades, food issues are...   Read More










Categories: Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, FAO

Monsanto Acquires Delta & Pine Land and Terminator

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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...   Read More

Categories: Biopiracy, Biotechnology, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, Cultural Diversity, FAO, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, "New Enclosures", Terminator & Traitor

News Release: Call for rejection of World Bank-GEF biosafety projects

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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 that DNA contamination from genetically modified crops poses an unacceptable risk to stable crops that are the basis of peasant economies in these regions. The multi-million...   Read More

Categories: Biopiracy, Biotechnology, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, FAO, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights

Groups in Africa, Latin America condemn World Bank biosafety projects

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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.

Categories: Biopiracy, FAO, CGIAR, Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Biotechnology, Corporate Concentration

Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy 2006

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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.

Categories: Biopiracy, CGIAR, Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Cultural Diversity, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Terminator & Traitor, Biotechnology, Human Genomics, Nanotechnology, Corporate Concentration, Intellectual Property & Patents, "New Enclosures", Public / Private Relations

News Release: Ban Terminator Campaign -- Terminator Seed Battle Begins: Farmers Face Billions of Dollars in Potential Costs

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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....   Read More

Categories: Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Biopiracy, Biotechnology, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, Cultural Diversity, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, "New Enclosures", Other, Public / Private Relations, Terminator & Traitor

Whatever Happened to the Enola Bean Patent Challenge?

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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.

Categories: Biopiracy, FAO, CGIAR, Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Cultural Diversity, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, "New Enclosures", Public / Private Relations

Industry Exploits New Study on GM Contamination in Mexico

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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)  

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Categories: Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Biopiracy, Biotechnology, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, Cultural Diversity, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, Public / Private Relations

Canada Denies Visa for Africa's Top Biosafety Negotiator

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ETC Group
News Release
18 May 2005
www.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.Read More

Categories: Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Biopiracy, Biotechnology, CGIAR, Cultural Diversity, FAO, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, "New Enclosures", Public / Private Relations, Terminator & Traitor

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

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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...   Read More

Categories: Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Biopiracy, Biotechnology, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, Cultural Diversity, FAO, Human Genomics, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, "New Enclosures", Terminator & Traitor

Canadian Government to Unleash Terminator Bombshell at UN Meeting: All-out push for commercialisation of Sterile Seed Technology

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

Canadian Government to Unleash Terminator Bombshell at UN Meeting: All-out push for commercialisation of Sterile Seed Technology

A confidential document leaked today to ETC Group reveals that the Canadian government, at a United Nations meeting in Bangkok (Feb 7-11), will attempt to overturn an international moratorium on genetic seed sterilisation technology (known universally as Terminator). Even worse, the Canadian government has instructed its negotiators to "block consensus" on any other option.

"Canada is about to launch a devastating kick in the stomach to the world's most vulnerable farmers - the 1.4 billion people who depend on farm saved seed," said ETC Group Executive Director Pat Mooney speaking from Ottawa. "The Canadian government is doing the dirty work for...   Read More

Categories: Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Biopiracy, Biotechnology, CGIAR, Corporate Concentration, Cultural Diversity, FAO, Human Rights / Farmers' Rights, Intellectual Property & Patents, "New Enclosures", Public / Private Relations, Terminator & Traitor