Terminator Technology: An All-Out Assault on Food Sovereignty
Seeds are the foundation of global food security. Seeds exist to grow into plants and then to reproduce, multiplying into more seeds to grow more plants. Throughout history, farmers have evolved sophisticated plant-breeding techniques premised on saving seeds from the best plants of the current year's harvest to plant again. It is through human ingenuity mixed with the life force of seeds that farmers have fed themselves and the rest of the world for thousands of years. It is almost inconceivable to think that this life-giving process is now under attack.
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 agro-chemical company to purchase new seeds, thus ensuring that profits would be maximized. 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.
If you would like to help with the campaign, there are many ways to get involved:
- Write a letter to your MP and to the Prime Minister urging a national and international ban on Terminator. Sample letters can be found at
www.banterminator.org. - Groups and communities can endorse the campaign at www.banterminator.org.
- Organize Ban Terminator events in your community. Materials can be downloaded from www.banterminator.org.
- Pass a community, municipal or regional resolution against Terminator that states your concerns and demands action.
- Keep in touch with the campaign and Urgent Action notices through the campaign's E-list. Sign up at www.banterminator.org.
For over thirty years, Inter Pares and our counterparts have worked with seed savers, indigenous and other agricultural communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Canada to strengthen local food security, a primary component of genuinely sustainable rural development. Inter Pares supporters have accompanied us in this process, providing financial, political and moral support for our common work. By joining the Ban Terminator campaign, you can help us defend food security from this looming threat – please consider visiting www.banterminator.org today.
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Inter Pares works overseas and in Canada in support of self-help development groups, and in the promotion of understanding about the causes, effects and solutions to under-development and poverty.
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Financial support for the Bulletin is provided by the Canadian International Development Agency.
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