Tell your Member of Parliament to support a Ban on Terminator Seeds in Canada!
On December 7th 2006 the House of Commons Agriculture and Agri-Food Committee will hold a one-hour hearing on Terminator technology.
WRITE to your Member of Parliament and the Minister of Agriculture before Dec 7th.
In March 2006 and February 2005, your letters stopped the Canadian government from acting to end the international moratorium on Terminator (?suicide seeds?) at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. In March, the Canadian delegation to the UN meeting did not object to the reaffirmation and strengthening of the moratorium. Yet, our government supported the moratorium without actually stating a position on Terminator. Now we find out that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is preparing the road for approval of Terminator!
DEMAND that the Canadian Government state its unqualified opposition to this dangerous technology and take immediate steps to legislate a ban on field-testing and commercialization in Canada.
Terminator or Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURTs) is a technology of genetic engineering designed by the multinational seed industry to render seeds sterile after first harvest, thus preventing farmers from saving and re-using seed, forcing them to return to corporations to buy seed every season. This predatory strategy has been widely condemned, in Canada and across the world, because it threatens farmer livelihoods, food security, and agricultural biodiversity. And yet, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency continues to prepare for the potential introduction of Terminator seeds and there is no policy in Canada to address the devastating impacts Terminator would have on farmers? livelihoods.
UPDATES:
? In August 2006, Monsanto announced that it will buy US seed company Delta & Pine Land. If the deal goes through, Monsanto will own the most advanced research on Terminator including the only greenhouse trials of Terminator seeds in the world. (Monsanto previously committed not to commercialize Terminator but has begun to reword this pledge.)
? In October 2005, the Canadian Patent Office granted the first ever Canadian patent on a Terminator technology (owned by Delta & Pine Land and the U.S. Department of Agriculture).
? Swiss multinational Syngenta has requested a Canadian patent on Terminator potatoes.
