Searice urges DA to review GMO rice-evaluation process

Businessmirror November 16, 2007
By Jennifer A. Ng Reporter

THE Southeast Asia Regional Initiative for Community Empowerment
(Searice) is urging the Department of Agriculture (DA) to make its
evaluation process for a genetically modified (GM) rice variant "more
transparent."

Searice also called on the DA to reject Bayer Philippines' application
to commercially distribute its GM rice variant Liberty Link 62 (LL62).

"Allowing the importation of this GM rice requires transparency and
public knowledge as rice is the Filipinos' staple food," said Socrates
Lugasip, technical officer of Searice.

"The people need to know the reasons behind the government's rush to
allow this while this has not been grown commercially elsewhere, no
history of safe consumption by humans, much less by a population that
eats rice three times a day, whole-year round," Lugasip said.

The international nongovernment organization also posed serious
questions on the independence of the Scientific and Technical Review
Panel (STRP) from multinational firms producing GM products.

"We urge the Department of Agriculture to divulge the composition of
the STRP and assure the public of the members' independence from any
GMO [GM organism] company's interest. It is the responsibility of the
DA officials to ensure that the people's staple food is not dictated
by the GMO companies' profit interests," said Lugasip.

Searice points to Administrative Order 8 issued by the DA which states
that the STRP shall be "composed of at least three reputable and
independent scientists.to evaluate the application, particularly the
risk- assessment studies conducted and actions taken by relevant
regulatory authorities in the country of origin, and submit its
report to the Bureau of Plant Industry within 30 days from its receipt
of the application."

The Searice official noted a recent Greenpeace report which alleged
that the STRP is composed mostly of experts who were commissioned by
multinational firms to do research on genetic-plant materials.

Meanwhile, a member of the STRP said he would dismiss the application
of Bayer for LL62 right away for "lack of merit."

"Would it enhance agricultural productivity, global competitiveness,
lower the price of rice in the market, alleviate poverty and hunger,
improve the health of the rice-eating Filipinos? These were the
justifications for the country to hitch a ride with the biotechnology
bandwagon in the early years of the GMO debate, but these are now
conveniently forgotten in the decision-making process," said Dr.
Emerlito Borromeo.

Borromeo also said the evaluation of GMO applications should not be
left to the STRP alone because their perspective is confined to
"technical aspects" only and could not defend the economic and
socio-cultural implications of a particular GMO product.

Advocates of GM products had earlier defended the country's regulatory
and approval process and said it can ensure that any GM product
screened and approved will be safe for human consumption.

NGO asks gov't to deny Bayer petition

http://business.inquirer.net/money/breakingnews/view_article.php?article_id=
101164
By Amy R. Remo
Posted date: November 15, 2007

An international nongovernmental organization has asked the government
to deny an application of pharmaceutical giant Bayer for commercial
distribution of its genetically modified rice, Liberty Link Rice 62,
on grounds that the evaluation process is "concealed from the public."

The Southeast Asia Regional Initiative for Community Empowerment
(SEARice) raised the alarm, saying the "concealment" also posed
serious questions on the independence of the government's Scientific
and Technical Review Panel from GMO-producing firms.

"We urge the Department of Agriculture to divulge the composition of
the STRP and assure the public of the members' independence from any
GMO firm's interest," said Socrates Lugasip, SEARice technical
officer.

According to the DA, the STRP is composed of at least three "reputable
and independent scientists ... to evaluate the application,
particularly the risk assessment studies conducted and actions taken
by relevant regulatory authorities in the country of origin."

Lugasip said allowing the importation of this GM rice required
transparency and public knowledge as rice is the Filipinos' staple
food.

"The people need to know the reasons behind the government's rush to
allow this, despite the fact that the rice has not been grown
commercially elsewhere nor does it have any history of safe
consumption by humans," Lugasip said.

Bayer, for its part, said it could not issue an official statement due
to a pending case on the commercialization of the LLRICE62.

Greenpeace filed this year a petition against the use of Bayer's
LLRice62 for food, animal feed and processing.

SEARice said a member of the STRP had said he would dismiss the
application of LLRICE62 for lack of merit.

"Would it enhance agricultural productivity, global competitiveness,
lower the price of rice in the market, alleviate poverty and hunger,
improve the health of the rice-eating Filipinos?" said STRP member
Emerlito Borromeo.

Borromeo added that the evaluation of GMO applications should not be
left to STRP alone because the panel's perspective was confined only
to technical aspects, and does not cover the economic and
sociocultural implications of a particular GMO.

Farmers oppose GMO rice

Saturday, November 17, 2007
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/nov/17/yehey/metro/20071117met3.html
BY Chino Leyco Researcher

The Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (Searice) urged the Department of Agriculture to heed the petition of farmers to stop the importation of genetically modified (GM) rice, codenamed as LLRICE 62.

In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap, the farmers raised alarm over the possible contamination of local rice varieties in case LLRICE 62 is accidentally mixed with the farmers' traditional varieties in the market.

The farmers also warned that importing LLRICE 62 may signal the start of the planting of GM rice that will pose a greater danger of contaminating the local rice fields, especially those that have switched to organic rice.

About 200 rice farmers from Bohol and Mindanao individually wrote their letter to Yap, asking him to deny the application of Bayer CropScience to import LLRICE 62.

Socrates Lugasip, Searice technical officer, said that the lack of transparency in the application and approval process of GM food and crops has denied the farmers with the venue for redress, especially on rice that embodies their life and tradition.

"This is the heart of the petition filed before the court seeking to declare the DA Administrative Order No. 8 as unconstitutional. It denies the people of their constitutional right to information, health and balanced and healthful ecology," Lugasip said.

In August, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 101 issued a 20-day temporary restraining order against the Bureau of Plant Industry, an attached agency of the DA, prohibiting them from approving Bayer's GM rice application until the case is being heard.

Enviros Challenge Dumping Urea in Ocean to Sink Carbon

This artist's rendition of an Ocean Nourishment Corporation plant shows how the company would pump urea into the ocean to stimulate plankton growth. Photo credit: Courtesy of Ocean Nourishment Corporation.

Science : Planet Earth
Enviros Challenge Dumping Urea in Ocean to Sink Carbon
By Brandon Keim 11.07.07 | 5:00 PM
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2007/11/urea_dumping

An Australian company is injecting urea into the ocean, hoping to sequester greenhouse-gas pollution and cash in on carbon credits.
If all goes according to plan, oceanic plankton will thrive on the nitrogen-rich urea broth and absorb carbon dioxide. When the plankton die, they'll sink to the bottom of the sea taking the carbon dioxide with them. The business plan: Companies licensing the technology can sell carbon offsets.
But some scientists worry the technique hasn't been rigorously studied. The nitrogen injections, they say, could feed toxic algae, disrupt poorly understood ecosystems and ultimately release more carbon dioxide than is deep-sixed.
"If we're going to entertain such massive measures, they need to be informed by scientific fact and experimentation, and less by opinion and profit motivations," said ocean fertilization researcher Kenneth Coale, director of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in California.
The scheme, conceived by Sydney-based Ocean Nourishment Corporation and slated for large-scale testing off the coast of the Philippines next year, captures the Wild West reality of climate engineering in the 21st century. Scientists and entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on global warming concerns have proposed everything from iron seeding to orbital mirrors to reflect the sun. Meanwhile, these practices are governed only by a skimpy patchwork of laws.
Ocean Nourishment recently dumped one ton of urea into the Sulu Sea. Researchers haven't finished evaluating that data, said managing director Jim Ridley, but noted that early analysis supports claims of plankton nourishment and subsequent carbon-dioxide sequestration.
In the next several months, the company will conduct another one-ton Sulu Sea experiment, this time monitoring the effects more closely. Over three weeks, researchers will track plankton blooms with satellites, combine samples taken directly from the water with geographic information, and observe how the area evolves.
Critics aren't worried about the risks of these early tests. A ton of urea affects just a few hundred square meters of ocean. But depending on the next set of test results, Ridley said, the company could conduct a 500-ton experiment early next year. If that goes well, he said, ONC will start licensing its technology.
At that scale, unintended consequences, such as toxic algal blooms and food-chain disruptions, could be more profound -- and scientists worry that the company might not notice.
"To date, none of the iron-enrichment experiments have been designed to test these unintended consequences, and none of the urea-enrichment studies are designed to do that, either," Coale said.
Apart from the often-destructive aquatic effects of nitrogen runoff from industrial farms, only Ocean Nourishment has studied the effects of urea fertilization.
"It's the early days," Ridley said. "We're still very much in the R&D phase."
Nevertheless, the company's website implies that the technology is well-understood. The site already offers licenses for sale (.pdf). Developing countries from "all over the world" have shown interest, Ridley said.
Critics are skeptical of Ocean Nourishment's ability to measure, much less sell, the carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by this process.
"Nobody has a way of measuring how much carbon is sinking into the lower levels of the ocean," said Jim Thomas, a research-program manager at the ETC Group, an Ottawa-based environmental advocacy organization.
To produce urea, the company would need to build natural-gas-burning factories. Whether plankton blooms would offset the carbon dioxide released by those factories is unknown. Ocean Nourishment factors urea production into its carbon equations, but commercial pressures threaten the integrity of companies pursuing climate modification, Coale said.
He said that people pursuing climate-engineering projects for profit need to be separated from those who decide whether the projects are a good idea. "Right now, they're the same."
Asked whether the company's marketing has outpaced its science, Ridley said, "You might read it that way, but it's not the case."
Edwina Tanner, an oceanographer with Ocean Nourishment's research partner, Earth Ocean & Space, said the company's findings will be submitted to scientific journals in coming years, minimizing the chance of mistakes.
"The scientific community is really overseeing this," Tanner said.
To better regulate geo-engineering, Coale recommends establishing an organization like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to regulate ocean fertilization. Thomas wants the International Maritime Organization to handle the job. Even Ridley agrees that oversight is sorely needed.
"You hear concern from the scientists: What might happen to the oceans? We don't know that yet," he said. "It's inevitable that there will be some kind of United Nations control over these technologies, especially when they're commercialized. I think there has to be."

Urea 'climate solution' may backfire

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/09/2087099.htm

By Anna Salleh for ABC Science Online

Posted Fri Nov 9, 2007 6:38pm AEDT
Updated Fri Nov 9, 2007 7:03pm AEDT


A NASA satellite image of an enormous bloom of phytoplankton floating off the northern coast of Norway. (AFP: NASA)

Plans by an Australian company to sink hundreds of tonnes of urea into the ocean to combat climate change may backfire and exacerbate global warming, critics say.

Sydney-based company Ocean Nourishment Corporation (ONC) is looking at using nitrogen-rich urea to boost the growth of CO2-absorbing phytoplankton.

The idea, says the company, is for this form of carbon sequestration to lock up carbon in the oceans for thousands of years.

It says that encouraging the growth of more phytoplankton could also boost fish stocks.

But several scientists and civil society groups are worried about the lack of independent oversight of such private exploration of 'ocean fertilisation', which they say could trigger environmental problems rather than solve them.

ONC plans to develop this method of carbon sequestration to generate valuable carbon credits.

And it is using the research of Adjunct Professor Ian Jones at the University of Sydney's civil engineering department to do so.

Adjunct Professor Jones has conducted laboratory experiments to show that nitrogen is important in boosting the growth of phytoplankton in ocean samples.

ONC has taken the research out of the lab. Managing director John Ridley says the company has just completed an experiment involving one tonne of nitrogen in the Sulu Sea off the Philippines.

The company is now discussing with the Philippines Government plans to scale up the experiment to 1,000 tonnes of nitrogen over the next year.

Mr Ridley says the company is also talking to the Moroccan Government about similar experiments in the Atlantic Ocean.

Scientists' concerns
But scientists involved in publicly funded basic research into the role of nutrients including iron in the oceans are worried about the commercial imperative behind the latest experiments. Biogeochemist Dr Philip Boyd of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) is one of them.

"This latest development in the Sulu Sea has all of our community concerned, as there doesn't appear to be any published evidence of how urea fertilisation impacts ocean biology and ecology," he said.

Dr Cliff Law of NIWA and others say independent scientific experts should oversee research by a growing number of private companies developing ocean fertilisation.

"At the end of the day we're dealing with companies that want to make money out of carbon credits," he said.

ONC says there is little publicly available material on the field experiments, partly because of the need to protect intellectual property.

It says the experiments are mimicking natural upwelling of nutrients that occur in productive ocean areas.

In a commercial plant this would involve using urea produced from natural gas to sequester 10 megatonnes of CO2 per year.

It also says each of its plants could provide 50 grams of marine protein per day for 38 million people.

But others say such moves could bring bad news as well as good.

Dr Law says natural upwelling of nutrients can trigger toxic algal blooms and the release of nitrous oxide - a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.

ONC's Mr Ridley says the company will use ships to monitor phytoplankton growth and concentrations of nitrogen will not be allowed to go high enough to cause algal blooms.

"If we step the scale of this up we can actually track it by satellite," he said.

Dr Law is not impressed.

"That all sounds very neat. If only it was so easy," he said.

Sequestration's huge challenges
Dr Law says boosting phytoplankton for fish stocks will also keep carbon circulating in the ecosystem, which would therefore undermine any sequestration efforts.

In addition, he says one of the challenges to long-term sequestration is drawing the dead phytoplankton down deep into the ocean.

Dr Law says experiments seeding the ocean with iron have shown hardly any plankton sink below 100 metres, which means any carbon in them would be re-released within months.

Even if the plankton appear to sink, he says currents can bring them up again quite quickly.

Dr Law says verifying long-term ocean carbon sequestration is difficult and expensive and he wonders how ONC will do this.

London meeting
An international scientific group on ocean dumping, known as the London Convention, is understood to be discussing urea ocean fertilisation at a meeting in the UK this week.

Earlier this week a coalition of civil society groups urged the convention to stop urea experiments until their impacts had been properly assessed.

Earlier this year the convention cautioned against ocean fertilisation using iron.

Mr Ridley of ONC says the convention only has jurisdiction over experiments carried out in the high seas.

Instead, he says ONC will focus on territorial waters so it can be involved in carbon credit schemes.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has labelled ocean fertilisation as a hypothetical solution to climate change, carrying unknown side-effects and economic costs.

Tags: environment, climate-change, oceans-and-reefs, science-and-technology, research, australia

Agenda Item 14 on Article 9: Farmers' Rights: In Search of International Relevance

October 31, 2007 marked the day that the fate of the lives of farmers in terms of their rights to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture were to be deliberated by the international community. The crux of the contentions focused on the relevance of the Governing Body in providing guidance to the Contracting Parties as to the implementation of Article 9 within their national jurisdictions. The G77 and China group were steadfast in asserting the need for the Governing Body to discuss Farmers' Rights, in view of its critical role in fulfilling the objectives of the International Treaty on conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture today and for the future, and proposed the adoption of a draft Resolution on Farmers' Rights, stating as follows:

THE GOVERNING BODY,

RECALLING the recognition in the International Treaty of the enormous contribution that farmers of all regions of the world have made, and will continue to make, for the conservation and development of plant genetic resources as the basis of food and agriculture production throughout the world,

AWARE that Farmers' Rights, as covered in Article 9 of the International Treaty, are about enabling farmers to continue this work and about recognizing and rewarding them for their contribution to the global genetic pool, especially in the light of the challenges presented by climate change,

ACKNOWLEDGING that there is great uncertainty and constraints in many countries as to how Farmers' Rights can be implemented and that the challenges related to the realization of Farmers' Rights are likely to vary from country to country,

RECOGNIZING that exchange of experiences, as well as guidance and assistance from the Governing Body, are required to make progress in the implementation of the provisions on Farmers' Rights in the International Treaty,

THEREFORE REQUESTS the Secretary to compile views and experiences on the implementation of Farmers' Rights as set out in Article 9 from the Contracting Parties and other relevant organizations - and to present the results of this compilation in the form of a report that will be the basis of a substantive item of the agenda of the Third Session of the Governing Body to promote the realization of these rights,

ENCOURAGES the Contracting Parties to prepare their reports in an inclusive and participatory manner, involving farmers' organizations as appropriate,

APPRECIATES the involvement of farmers' organizations at this Second Session and affirms its commitment to continue to involve farmers' organizations in relevant work of the Governing Body, including in its future sessions, according to the procedures established by the Governing Body.

This, however, encountered oppositions from Canada, representing the North American Regional Group, and Australia, representing the Southwest Pacific Regional Group, which asserted that the responsibility for implementation of Article 9 rests with national governments and that the resources of the Governing Body should not be allocated to implementation of Article 9 which is not a core function of the International Treaty.

Brazil emphasized in support of the G77 and China position that there is a need to provide policy space at the international level to allow development of policies in line with the International Treaty.

Portugal, representing the European Regional Group, on the other hand, requested official translations of the draft Resolution before the document could be discussed as a working document to be adopted by the Governing Body.


November 1, 2007 paved the way for the fate of the lives of farmers with the adoption of the negotiated final text of the Resolution. Despite numerous revisions on the text of the draft Resolution during the negotiations of the plenary, the Contracting Parties came to an agreement to provide international space and relevance for Farmers' Rights:

THE GOVERNING BODY,

RECALLING the recognition in the International Treaty of the enormous contribution that local and indigenous communities and farmers of all regions of the world have made, and will continue to make, for the conservation and development of plant genetic resources as the basis of food and agriculture production throughout the world;

RECALLING the importance of fully implementing Article 9 of the International Treaty;

RECALLING also that according to Article 9 of the International Treaty, the responsibility for realizing Farmers' Rights, as they relate to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, rests with national governments;

ACKNOWLEDGING that there is uncertainty in many countries as to how Farmers' Rights can be implemented and that the challenges related to the realization of Farmers' Rights are likely to vary from country to country;

RECOGNIZING that exchange of experiences and mutual assistance between Contracting Parties can significantly contribute in making progress in the implementation of the provisions on Farmers' Rights in the International Treaty;

RECOGNIZING the contribution the Governing Body may give in support of the implementation of Farmers' Rights;

1. ENCOURAGES Contracting Parties and other relevant organizations to submit views and experiences on the implementation of Farmers' Rights as set out in Article 9 of the International Treaty, involving, as appropriate, farmers' organizations and other stakeholders;

2. REQUESTS the Secretariat to collect these views and experiences as a basis for an agenda item for consideration by the Governing Body at its Third Session to promote the realization of Farmers' Rights at the national level, and to disseminate relevant information through the website of the International Treaty, where appropriate;

APPRECIATES the involvement of farmers' organizations at this Second Session and affirms its commitment to continue to involve farmers' organizations in its further work, as appropriate, according to the Rules of Procedure established by the Governing Body.

Guidance by the Governing Body on Article 9: A Non-Issue to Begin With

Much of the contentions on the draft Resolution and the working documents on Article 9 as an agenda item to be deliberated by the Governing Body in its 2nd Session lay on the issue of the role of the Governing Body in providing guidance to Contracting Parties on the implementation of Article 9 in their respective jurisdictions. As argued by the North American Regional Group (Canada), European Regional Group (Portugal), and Southwest Pacific Group (Australia), its implementation rests with national governments and guidance is not a core function of the Governing Body.


Finding that the crux of the differences was mainly on the issue of whether or not the provisions of the International Treaty preclude the Governing Body from providing guidance to the Contracting Parties on the implementation of Article 9, the legal counsel of FAO succinctly and rhetorically answered. Undeniably, implementation of Article 9 of the International Treaty rests with national governments. Considering that it is the Contracting Parties themselves which came to an agreement to come up with the International Treaty, there is no arguing that the Contracting Parties themselves can submit to the Governing Body issues they deem the Governing Body can provide guidance on.


Whether or not the Governing Body can provide guidance on the Treaty's implementation, specifically on Article 9? This is a non-issue.

Seed Treaty in Peril

For immediate release – endorsed by the civil society and farmers’ organizations present at FAO

Thursday, 1 November, 2007

Farmers Call for Suspension of Seed Treaty

Governments fail to meet minimal Treaty obligations

UN conference told

Farmers’ organizations who were invited to attend a United Nations meeting on the Treaty that governs the exchange of crop seeds for research and plant breeding late yesterday told the assembled governments that the Treaty would have to be suspended. Speaking on behalf of 30 farmers’ and other civil society organizations, Ibrahima Coulibaly of ROPPA (regional farmers’ organization of West Africa) said that, “the Treaty, hosted in Rome by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), must halt the exchange of crop germplasm – the critical material for plant breeding. The suspension should remain in effect until governments meet the minimal obligations of the Treaty including its core financial arrangements”, the African farmer leader concluded.

The second meeting of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture ("the Law of the Seed") began on Monday and is expected to run through Friday but has been blocked -- indeed, almost completely silent -- because it's 115 member governments have been unable to find the $4.9 million necessary to keep the lights on in its Secretariat and to maintain fundamental monitoring mechanisms that could ensure equitable sharing of the benefits of the seeds to be exchanged for research. Governments have also failed to commit funding to support in situ (“on-farm”) seed conservation or for capacity building in the global South.

“We are faced with the greatest case of institutional biopiracy ever seen,” said Andrew Mushita of the Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation Network (a network of conservation programs in 21 countries). “In effect, governments are now enabling multinational seed companies to impose a legally-binding regime that forces the exchange of farmers’ seeds without reciprocal benefits,” said Mushita who also addressed governments yesterday.

Another civil society representative in the meeting, Wilhelmina Pelegrina from a SEARICE, a Phillipines-based organization said, “We also expect the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to suspend its germplasm exchanges in order to remain compliant with the spirit of the Treaty." Eleven institutes of the CGIAR have distributed 100,000 seed samples under the terms of the Treaty so far this year. "We hope the suspension will be temporary and governments will come to their senses quickly”, said Pelegrina.

Negotiations for the Treaty began in the mid-1990s because scientific researchers and multinational plant breeders were experiencing a substantial decline in their access to vital breeding material. Scientists and farmers, particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, were denying requests from northern breeders because private companies were taking farmers’ varieties, patenting and profiting from them. The decline in seed exchange was threatening world food security and governments decided to act. The Treaty – after seven years of acrimonious negotiations – includes provisions for Farmers’ Rights and is supposed to guarantee an equitable flow of financial benefits to developing countries. Without funding for core administrative services, farmers and developing countries can have no confidence that there is equity in the system.

According to Pat Mooney of ETC Group headquartered in Canada, who also attended the meeting, "The global seed industry has annual commercial sales of $23 billion. Beginning in the 1970s multinational pesticide enterprises began buying seed companies. Today,” Mooney said, “the top 10 seed companies have 57% of the commercial seed trade. Last year, a single company’s biotech seeds and traits – Monsanto’s – accounted for 86% of the total worldwide area devoted to genetically modified seeds.” These multinational gene giants are thought to be the major beneficiaries in the current Treaty dispute.

“It’s not all governments,” said Guy Kastler, Via Campesina/Europe “the real biopirates at this meeting are France, Germany and Australia. These governments are making it impossible for the international community to fulfill its Treaty obligations. Although their seed industries are major beneficiaries of the Treaty, these three countries haven't contributed a penny to the Treaty’s operations and they are actively blocking negotiations here.”

Farmers’ organizations – who are attending the meeting at FAO's invitation but at their own expense – sat stunned yesterday as governments refused to discuss the proposed program of work for the Treaty. Even the most contentious issues passed by without comment.

Farmers undertake the overwhelming majority of the world’s seed conservation and plant breeding. This was confirmed Tuesday when the representative of UPOV, the Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties (the Geneva-based intergovernmental body that oversees intellectual property related to plant varieties) reported that breeders had only “protected” 70,000 varieties in recent decades. Farmers breed and adapt more than one million varieties every year.

“If negotiations collapse at FAO,” said Maria Elza Gomez from a Brazilian small farmers’ organization, “the matter might move to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, whose scientific subcommittee will meet at FAO in Rome in February 2008. Governments and FAO could lose control of the Treaty to a different UN body. This would be a serious mistake: the control over seeds -- the first link in the food chain -- would be left with a bunch of environmentalists who know nothing about agriculture.”

Farmers' Reports: Status of Farmers' Rights Realization - Side-event on Farmers' Rights in the 2nd Session of the Governing Body

October 30, 2007, 1300-1430, Iran Room
Farmers' Reports: Status of Farmers' Rights Realization

Organized by the Community Biodiversity Development Conservation (CBDC) Network to highlight the status of Farmers' Rights based on the perspectives and understanding of farmers through farmers' reporting and translate farmers' reports as a means of assessment of International Treaty implementation to assist and inform in the realization of Farmers' Rights, farmers from the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil shared the results of various processes that lead to their reports on the status of the realization of Farmers' Rights in their respective countries. The farmers also shared their experiences on their work on conservation and sustainable use, as well as their perspectives and understanding of what farmers' rights is based on the reality that they live in.

The first presentation was by Mrs. Estela Calamba and Mr. Candido Baldapan, both from the Farmers' Consultative Council in Bohol, Philippines which is comprised of six people's organizations involved in conservation work and in-situ development of seeds in their communities in Bohol. They emphasized their experiences and contribution in maintaining crop diversity through their work on conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources, in particular, on their work in rice breeding, seed banking, seed exchanges, varietal evaluation, regeneration of traditional varieties, soil and pest management and organic farming. Likewise, experiences in exchanges between farmers, with students, and other institutions, as well as successes by their people's organizations in directing policy direction in their province on its commitment to be free from genetically modified organisms and their municipality's support and recognition on farmers' community registry systems as a means of recognizing and protecting farmers' seeds.

The next presentations focused on the farmers' reports in the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil, where it was significantly pointed out that the concept of Farmers' Rights for farmers exceeds the issue of seeds. Farmers' Rights is a bundle of rights that include farmers' rights to seeds, to land, to water, to culture, to information, to technology, to support services and policies, to participation and decision-making, to market, among others. A detailed account of their presentations can be found here.

The results of the national process enabled the CBDC Network to view Farmers' Rights in a more holistic and expansive perspective that includes the rights of farmers to seeds. In particular, the CBDC Network emphasized the following points:

The CBDC Network undertook a number of consultative processes in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia in an endeavor to determine the conceptual understanding and perspectives of various stakeholders, initiatives directed towards domesticating and realization of Farmers' Rights. The consultative processes were undertaken in seven representative countries which include Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Lao PDR, Philippines, Venezuela, Malawi and Zimbabwe. The interactive and participatory consultative processes were carried out from June to October 2007.

The primary objective of the consultative processes was to have an inclusive definition and interpretation of Farmers' Rights by farmers themselves, farmers' organizations and civil society organizations. The following are the farmers' perspectives and demands for the realization of Farmers' Rights:

1. Farmers' Rights are understood in a broader context that includes their rights to land, water, seed, technology, biodiversity, and culture and gender equity among others. These rights are considered collective and inalienable towards providing mechanisms for facilitating livelihoods in terms of realizing food security, food sovereignty, poverty alleviation and enhancing farmers' rights to food as a fundamental human right. Farmers consider and exercise their right to seed security as a means of determining their own means of production without outside influence and as a prerequisite to national food security.

In this regard, farmers require policy, legislative and technical support to strengthen their rights. Such policy and legislative measures need to strategically protect traditional knowledge, innovations, technologies, social and cultural practices related to the sustainable conservation and utilization of genetic resources for food and agriculture.

2. We note with concern that the International Treaty merely recognizes the contribution of farmers to agro-biodiversity without putting in place concrete measures for protecting, promoting or actualizing the fruits of these contributions. On the other hand, the Treaty is replete with measures for allowing governments, research institutions and industry users of PGRFA to access these resources and mechanisms for sharing benefits arising therefrom. This imbalance negates the Treaty's own recognition of farmers' contribution to PGRFA in the Preamble and makes the rights in Article 9 illusory. It is for these reasons that we call upon the Governing Body to put in place specific guidelines that enables Contracting Parties to formalize and successfully implement farmers' rights with tangible reporting mechanisms.

3. The International Treaty calls upon Contracting Parties to implement Farmers' Rights but national governments are much more committed to the adoption of commercial agricultural models which promote IPR, GMOs, chemical and increased pesticide pesticide and herbicide use that enhance monoculture and restrict diversity and sustainable cropping systems and practices. The enormous support provided to emerging technologies including GMOs is a major threat to Farmers' Rights as they necessarily lead towards genetic contamination, biodiversity loss, and increased cost of production and farmer dependence on the seed industry.

We therefore call upon national governments to review and revise national policies and legislation so as to remove any restrictions on the exercise of Farmers' Rights that relate to community seed banks, seed fairs, right to save, sell and exchange seeds, re-use and select seeds of their choice, carry-out on-farm crop improvement practices designed to enhance food security and sustainability of agriculture.

4. We note with amazement, shock and dismay that the International Treaty, having facilitated the exchange of PGRFA from the CGIAR (collected freely from farmers' fields) in favor of the multinational corporations and research institutions, has now been reduced to merely a medium of legitimized mechanism of gross biopiracy. We note that this is a result of lack of a transparent and committed and legally binding funding mechanism. We recall that this was never the intended objective of the International Treaty. If the Contracting Parties are unable to redeem the International Treaty from this malaise then it is prudent to suspend its operations forthwith until such funds are availed to facilitate its effective implementation. In our considered view, the International Treaty cannot be used as a means of legitimizing global fraud of farmers' materials.