Update from the Campaign "Ban Terminator in Canada"
As a member of the Canadian Ban Terminator Steering Committee, Inter Pares invites you to demonstrate your support to Bill C-448 to ban "Terminator technology" - seeds genetically engineered to be sterile after first harvest. On May 31, 2007, this bill was tabled by Member of Parliament Alex Atamanenko, Agriculture Critic for the New Democratic Party, with support from Bloc Québécois' André Bellavance. It is now vital to tell to the Prime Minister and your Member of Parliament that you want them to support this bill.
Background on the Ban Terminator Campaign
In 1998, the Canadian organization, ETC Group, discovered that agro-chemical companies had won patents on a new technology that rendered seeds sterile at harvest. This technology was designed to prevent farmers from saving seeds from one season to the next through a genetically engineered (GE) suicide trait. In this way, each season, farmers would have no choice but to return to the company to purchase new seeds. The patents caused a widespread global outcry, and in the year 2000, Terminator technology (as it had come to be known) was subjected to an international de facto moratorium through the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
The de facto moratorium was adopted in recognition that more than 1.4 billion people rely on farm-saved seed, particularly the poorest, and that plant-breeding by farmers gave rise to the diversity of crops that exist today and constitute the foundation of our agricultural systems. Terminator technology is considered simply too dangerous to be allowed to be commercialized, or even field-tested.
However, in February 2005, a Canadian government delegation attended a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bangkok with plans to overturn the global de facto moratorium. Documents leaked to civil society groups showed that the Canadian delegation planned to push for field-testing and commercialization of Terminator technology, and were to veto "any other outcome". Overnight, Canadian government offices were flooded with an avalanche of furious e-mails from all over the world. It was only through this public pressure, combined with strong positions taken by other country negotiators, that Canada retreated from its position.
Since then, Inter Pares, along with ETC Group, the National Farmers Union, and USC Canada have initiated a global campaign to ban Terminator once and for all. The "Ban Terminator" campaign has both global and national dimensions. Globally, the campaign seeks to have the United Nations' de facto moratorium become a permanent international ban, and to support campaigns to push for national bans all over the world. In Canada, the campaign is working towards a national ban, and is soliciting public support to let the government know that Canadians do not support this technology.
In December 2006, Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, one of the world's foremost experts on Terminator technology was called as an expert witness to the House of Commons Agriculture Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee. These were the first ever hearings on Terminator seeds to take place in Canada. The committees heard her testimony on the science of Terminator technology and its implications for farmers and biodiversity. Dr Steinbrecher called on Canada to respect the precautionary principle embodied in the Convention on Biological Diversity that Canada is a signatory to. Dr. Steinbrecher's testimonies are available here:
Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry - Meeting of December 5, 2006- Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food - Meeting of December 7, 2006
To find out more about the Canadian Ban Terminator Campaign, click here:
www.banterminator.org/take_action/national_campaigns/canadian_campaign
| Reviewed July 11, 2007 |  |
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