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(February 25, 2008) Just as pirates dreamt of doing in centuries of old, today's wealthiest people are planning to bury in a very safe place the most precious of the treasures handed down by the earth and our ancestory to humanity and our children: the seeds of every crop variety. But what we do not know is who will have the key to the reinforced door protecting them.
The inauguration of the Global Seed Vault will take place on 26 February in Svalbard, on Spitsbergen Island in Norway, one of the remotest corners of the world. This project aims at gathering all the world's seed varieties together in a vault, and is the result of a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Nordic Gene Bank. The Trust -- funded and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Dupont/Pioneer, Syngenta AG, Syngenta Foundation and the International Seed Federation, the world's seed industry lobby group, among others -- will fund the operations of the vault. The Réseau Semences Paysannes is particularly concerned about this initiative for a number of reasons. The multinational industrial institutions and companies financing this vault are throwing themselves enthusiastically into this seed "conservation" project, whilst at the same time creating all the conditions necessary to destroy the world's genetic resources: 1 - They impose laws across the whole planet which deprive peasants of their right to conserve, use, exchange and sell seeds reproduced on the farm. The seed industry takes from the fields, free of charge, the seeds selected by the peasants, then marks these seeds with their own genetic stamp, designed to indicate their "intellectual property". In the name of the "free market", these laws also gradually prevent peasants from exchanging their own seeds. Moreover, the laws force peasants to buy seeds produced by the industry seeds, which are the only ones which can be registered in the official catalogues required for any sales. In many countries, the peasants no longer even have the right to resow from their harvests. 2 - They are mobilising billions of dollars to finance genetic technologies aimed at marking the seeds with patented genes and making them sterile, so that the peasants can no longer resow their harvests. The crazy dream many of these programmes profess to be working towards is to manufacture all of tomorrow's plants from synthetic genes. These modern-day pirates thus hope that they will no longer even need the key to the seed's vault, but only the key to the computer where all the genetic sequences of the seeds from the vault are saved. 3 – In the name of freedom of trade in services, they force governements to abandon public policies aimed at financing national seed collections. Most collections not simply thrown away are merged into vast international collections where the seeds are only listed by means of numbers which are incomprehensible to the peasants who wish to find the seeds which were taken from their fields. Some are also reduced to digital collections of genes in computers in preparation for genetic engineering. 4 - They adopt aggressive commercial strategies in order to globalise the culture of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other high-tech seeds, thus endangering the diversity of farm seeds. Moreover, the patented GMOs are also scattered around the remaining seed collections and in all the centres of origin and diversity of crops, which they go on to contaminate one by one. A handful of multinational corporations is thus on the verge of spoiling peasants of their right to cultivate, and the people’s right to feed themselves. Their manipulated seeds cannot grow without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, nor evolve to adpat themselves to climat changes. Only the reproduction and selection of seeds on farms and by peasants take up those challenges, in a respectful way for man and soils health. The Réseau Semences Paysannes demands, in accordance with international biodiversity agreements: - That every country recognise and protect peasants' rights to conserve, use, exchange and sell the seeds produced on the farm.- That all the seeds locked away in collections be returned to the countries and peasants from whom they were taken and that priority is given to conservation in farms.- That the money currently spent on plant biotechnology research be transferred to finance participatory plant breeding programmes aimed at allowing peasants men and women to continue to contribute to the conservation and renewal of biodiversity, and to their communties food sovereignty. Biodiversity will perish if it is locked away in a cave, unable to emerge to be grown as a crop. Seeds can only be saved if they are preserved and renewed in peasants' fields all around the world. For more information: Nicolas Supiot, Réseau Semences Paysannes, France : 0 (033) 6 50 01 13 29 Guy Kastler, Réseau Semences Paysannes, France : 0 (033) 603945721 (February 25, 2008) Just as pirates dreamt of doing in centuries of old, today's wealthiest people are planning to bury in a very safe place the most precious of the treasures handed down by the earth and our ancestory to humanity and our children: the seeds of every crop variety. But what we do not know is who will have the key to the reinforced door protecting them. The inauguration of the Global Seed Vault will take place on 26 February in Svalbard, on Spitsbergen Island in Norway, one of the remotest corners of the world. This project aims at gathering all the world's seed varieties together in a vault, and is the result of a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Nordic Gene Bank. The Trust -- funded and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Dupont/Pioneer, Syngenta AG, Syngenta Foundation and the International Seed Federation, the world's seed industry lobby group, among others -- will fund the operations of the vault. The Réseau Semences Paysannes is particularly concerned about this initiative for a number of reasons. The multinational industrial institutions and companies financing this vault are throwing themselves enthusiastically into this seed "conservation" project, whilst at the same time creating all the conditions necessary to destroy the world's genetic resources: 1 - They impose laws across the whole planet which deprive peasants of their right to conserve, use, exchange and sell seeds reproduced on the farm. The seed industry takes from the fields, free of charge, the seeds selected by the peasants, then marks these seeds with their own genetic stamp, designed to indicate their "intellectual property". In the name of the "free market", these laws also gradually prevent peasants from exchanging their own seeds. Moreover, the laws force peasants to buy seeds produced by the industry seeds, which are the only ones which can be registered in the official catalogues required for any sales. In many countries, the peasants no longer even have the right to resow from their harvests.
2 - They are mobilising billions of dollars to finance genetic technologies aimed at marking the seeds with patented genes and making them sterile, so that the peasants can no longer resow their harvests. The crazy dream many of these programmes profess to be working towards is to manufacture all of tomorrow's plants from synthetic genes. These modern-day pirates thus hope that they will no longer even need the key to the seed's vault, but only the key to the computer where all the genetic sequences of the seeds from the vault are saved. 3 – In the name of freedom of trade in services, they force governements to abandon public policies aimed at financing national seed collections. Most collections not simply thrown away are merged into vast international collections where the seeds are only listed by means of numbers which are incomprehensible to the peasants who wish to find the seeds which were taken from their fields. Some are also reduced to digital collections of genes in computers in preparation for genetic engineering. 4 - They adopt aggressive commercial strategies in order to globalise the culture of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other high-tech seeds, thus endangering the diversity of farm seeds. Moreover, the patented GMOs are also scattered around the remaining seed collections and in all the centres of origin and diversity of crops, which they go on to contaminate one by one. A handful of multinational corporations is thus on the verge of spoiling peasants of their right to cultivate, and the people’s right to feed themselves. Their manipulated seeds cannot grow without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, nor evolve to adpat themselves to climat changes. Only the reproduction and selection of seeds on farms and by peasants take up those challenges, in a respectful way for man and soils health. The Réseau Semences Paysannes demands, in accordance with international biodiversity agreements: - That every country recognise and protect peasants' rights to conserve, use, exchange and sell the seeds produced on the farm.- That all the seeds locked away in collections be returned to the countries and peasants from whom they were taken and that priority is given to conservation in farms.- That the money currently spent on plant biotechnology research be transferred to finance participatory plant breeding programmes aimed at allowing peasants men and women to continue to contribute to the conservation and renewal of biodiversity, and to their communties food sovereignty. Biodiversity will perish if it is locked away in a cave, unable to emerge to be grown as a crop. Seeds can only be saved if they are preserved and renewed in peasants' fields all around the world. For more information: Nicolas Supiot, Réseau Semences Paysannes, France : 0 (033) 6 50 01 13 29 Guy Kastler, Réseau Semences Paysannes, France : 0 (033) 603945721 General Agreement on Trade in Services |
