About ETC

ETC Group works to address the socioeconomic and ecological issues surrounding new technologies that could have an impact on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. We investigate ecological erosion (including the erosion of cultures and human rights); the development of new technologies (especially agricultural but also other technologies that work with genomics and matter); and we monitor global governance issues including corporate concentration and trade in technologies. We operate at the global political level. We work closely with partner civil society organizations (CSOs) and social movements, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

How we began: We began as a conversation about seeds in 1984. Nearly four decades later, we are still talking about seeds, but the world has grown infinitely more complex: new technologies have developed, economies have globalized, multinational companies have expanded their reach, and wealth and capital are concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer giant corporations. Life itself has been manipulated, picked apart, re-assembled – and then patented.