Wrong on so many levels
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,1408821,00.html)
Canada Backs Terminator Seeds
By John Vidal
The Guardian U.K.
Wednesday 09 February 2005
An international moratorium on the use of one of the world's most controversial GM food technologies may be broken today if the Canadian government gets seed sterilisation backed at a UN meeting. Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Canada wants all governments to accept the testing and commercialisation of "terminator" crop varieties. These are genetically engineered to produce only infertile seeds which farmers cannot replant. Jointly patented by the GM company Monsanto and the US government, the technology was condemned in the late 1990s by many African and Asian governments who called for a permanent ban. Monsanto and other GM companies which were developing similar technologies voluntarily pulled out of research after concerns were also raised about the "terminator" genes spreading to non-GM crops, and international outrage that poor farmers would not be able to use seeds from their crops, as they have always done.
But leaked instructions to Canadian government negotiators at the Bangkok meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, a group which advises the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, show that Canada will request today that all countries open their doors to the technology. The papers, leaked to the environment group ETC, also show that the Canadian government will attack an official UN report critical of the potential impact of "terminator" seeds on small farmers and indigenous peoples. The report recommends that governments prohibit the technology.
The Canadian government team in Bangkok was last night unavailable for comment.
I bet they were.
The only reason the politicians are pushing for this is that scientists beholden to corporations are assuring them it is safe. The corporations and the government see big dollar signs here and so are marching obediently in lock step.
The amazing failure of reason here is that these folks are ignoring / actively covering up evidence that "terminator" tech COULD spread to organisms in the wild. The extinction of all life would sure put a crimp in their stock portfolios, but that's just too long term for them to worry about. Bastards. And launched from the backs of poor farmers to boot.
We've said it before: This GM stuff is the biggest abuse of technology ever, in an upset.
Canada Backs Terminator Seeds
By John Vidal
The Guardian U.K.
Wednesday 09 February 2005
An international moratorium on the use of one of the world's most controversial GM food technologies may be broken today if the Canadian government gets seed sterilisation backed at a UN meeting. Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Canada wants all governments to accept the testing and commercialisation of "terminator" crop varieties. These are genetically engineered to produce only infertile seeds which farmers cannot replant. Jointly patented by the GM company Monsanto and the US government, the technology was condemned in the late 1990s by many African and Asian governments who called for a permanent ban. Monsanto and other GM companies which were developing similar technologies voluntarily pulled out of research after concerns were also raised about the "terminator" genes spreading to non-GM crops, and international outrage that poor farmers would not be able to use seeds from their crops, as they have always done.
But leaked instructions to Canadian government negotiators at the Bangkok meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, a group which advises the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, show that Canada will request today that all countries open their doors to the technology. The papers, leaked to the environment group ETC, also show that the Canadian government will attack an official UN report critical of the potential impact of "terminator" seeds on small farmers and indigenous peoples. The report recommends that governments prohibit the technology.
The Canadian government team in Bangkok was last night unavailable for comment.
I bet they were.
The only reason the politicians are pushing for this is that scientists beholden to corporations are assuring them it is safe. The corporations and the government see big dollar signs here and so are marching obediently in lock step.
The amazing failure of reason here is that these folks are ignoring / actively covering up evidence that "terminator" tech COULD spread to organisms in the wild. The extinction of all life would sure put a crimp in their stock portfolios, but that's just too long term for them to worry about. Bastards. And launched from the backs of poor farmers to boot.
We've said it before: This GM stuff is the biggest abuse of technology ever, in an upset.
posted by Jim Richardson at 4:07 PM
1 Comments:
Luckily, the moratorium to keep the Terminator at bay stands for now. One-legged and gangrened, perhaps, but standing. They insist the frankenseed will quell any unintended cross-pollination or geneflow to pure crops and their wild relatives...and more consistently feed the world at the same time, right? Its unpredictability is outrageous! Should this saturate the world market, there will be no end to the destruction and starvation.
I was also reading about a Gene Exorcist Technology some sneaky guy in Cali is working on. It aims to chemically delete any foreign DNA from current GM crops just prior to harvest. Born, bred, and fed to be a GM product entirely, it can this way escape being labled as such, keeping consumers in sheer ignorant ecstasy. Genetic lyposuction at its finest. It doesn't sound like any of the big dogs have bitten yet, but surely we haven't heard the end of it.
How do these assholes sleep at night?
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