Peasant seeds – the pillar of
food production – are under attack everywhere. Under corporate pressure,
laws in many countries increasingly limit what farmers can do with their
seeds. Seed saving, which has been the basis of farming for thousands of
years, is quickly being criminalised.
What can we do? A new booklet and poster from La Via
Campesina and GRAIN documents how big business and governments are moving
to stop farmers from saving and exchanging their seeds, and shows how farmers
are fighting back.
Control over seeds must remain in peasants’ hands. This is
the principle, based in the production process, that guarantees the food
sovereignty of rural communities and urban populations against multinationals
and their enormous profits. Over centuries, peasant farmers have created
the thousands of varieties of crops that are the basis of the world’s food
supply and diversified diets, says La Via Campesina’s Guy Kastler.
But for corporations who want to impose laws that will
give them complete control of land, farming, food and the profits that
could be made from this sector, these time-tested practices around seeds are
an obstacle. For La Via Campesina, the law should instead guarantee the
rights of peasants to conserve, use, exchange, use and sell their seeds and
protect them from biopiracy.
Big business is carrying out, with the support of governments,
a global legal offensive to gain complete control over seeds. This includes
not only privatising seeds through new laws, but giving themselves new
rights to physically search farmers’ homes and destroy their seeds, says
Camila Montecinos of GRAIN.
Seed laws are evolving and becoming more aggressive in
response to new demands from the seed and biotechnology industry. So-called
free trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties and regional integration
initiatives are hardening ‘soft’ forms of ownership rights over seeds.
And laws strengthening intellectual property rights over seeds are being
reinforced by other regulations that are supposed to ensure seed quality,
market transparency, prevention of counterfeits, and the like.
What is at stake is the very basis of peasant farmers’
existence. Social movements worldwide, especially peasant farmers organisations,
have resisted and mobilised to prevent such laws being passed.
Corporations and governments rely on secrecy and lack
of transparency because they know that an informed citizenry will reject the
privatisation of seeds.
This booklet will strengthen the resistance by ensuring
that as many people as possible – especially in the rural communities
that are most affected – understand these industry-backed laws, their impacts
and objectives, as well as the capacity of social movements to replace them
with laws that protect peasants’ rights.
Contents
1.
How seed laws make farmers’ seeds
illegal
2.
African seeds: A treasure under
threat
3.
The Americas: Massive resistance
against “Monsanto laws”
4.
Asia: The struggle against a new
wave of industrial seeds
5.
Europe: Farmers strive to rescue
agricultural diversity
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Filed Under: Agriculture, Corporatism/Fascism, Free Market Economics, Property Rights, SustainabilityCommentsLaws that criminalize natural seeds need to be repealed. Many countries have banned GMO products because of health concerns.Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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