Terminating food sovereignty in Ecuador? President opens door to Terminator seeds

ETC Group
News Release
April 17, 2009
www.etcgroup.org

Terminating Food Sovereignty in Ecuador?
President opens door to Terminator seeds
Download PDF (104 KB)

On February 18, 2009, the Ecuadorian Congress approved a new Law on Food Sovereignty, which, among other important points, declared the country “free of transgenic crops and seeds.” However, in spite of vocal popular opposition, the legislation left the door open to approvals of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in “exceptional” cases. Now, President Rafael Correa has proposed several changes to the legislation – in what is known in Ecuador as a partial-veto – and sent it back to the Congress. The president's changes dangerously weaken the law and open the door to Terminator seeds.

Terminator technology is designed to make “suicide seeds,” genetically engineered to be sterile in the second generation. The technology has been widely rejected around the world by farmers' movements, governments, research institutions and UN agencies as dangerous, immoral and undesirable.

Alarmed by President Correa's proposals, civil society is now calling on him to drop his amendments and to explicitly ban Terminator technology.

“It's very disturbing that a law that aims to affirm food sovereignty could instead clear the way for a technology that was designed to prevent it,” said Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Group. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the companies that designed suicide seed technology did so explicitly to replace what they called peasants' 'old seeds.' Since 2000, when a de facto moratorium against Terminator technology was agreed at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity [CBD], these companies have re-branded Terminator as a 'biosafety' tool. This is the interpretation reflected in the president's amended text. Ribeiro adds, “We're worried that this kind of language is showing up in several countries in the global South and we see it as a new push by the biotech industry to overturn the moratorium on Terminator at the CBD's meeting next year in Japan.”

Article 26 of Ecuador's Law on Food Sovereignty, entitled “Regulation of biotechnology and its products,” allowed for the import and processing of “raw materials containing transgenic inputs, provided they meet the requirements of health and safety, and that the reproductive capacity of the seeds is disabled by breaking [of grains] (…)”

The explicit clarification of “seed disabled by breaking” was included to ensure that if transgenic seeds were imported through food aid, or for processing, accidental gene flow from these grains would not contaminate crops in Ecuador, as has tragically happened in Mexico and other countries.

The partial-veto of President Correa removes the phrase “by breaking”[1] from this article, arguing that breaking the grains would mean increased costs. The result is that the amended wording now allows for the importation of GM materials provided only that the “reproductive capacity of seeds is disabled.” Such language equals an acceptance of grains with Terminator technology.

Elizabeth Bravo of Acción Ecológica, an internationally-respected environmental civil society organization in Ecuador, comments, “Unfortunately, the president's changes to the legislation reflect the influence of his biotech industry-friendly advisors. Terminator is an experimental technology that has never been proven. Scientific reports submitted to the CBD demonstrate that the complexity and instability of Terminator seeds mean that, in practice, there will still be leakage of GM traits. We could face a worst-case scenario: Ecuador enabling both GM contamination and suicide seeds. That is a direct threat to agricultural biodiversity, an essential basis for food sovereignty in Ecuador.”

Bravo added, “This text works against the provisions of article 73 of Ecuador's Constitution, which 'prohibits the introduction of organic and inorganic material that can alter in a definitive way the national genetic heritage.'”

Maria José Guazzelli from Brazil and the international Ban Terminator Campaign (made up of hundreds of organizations throughout the world), also voiced concern. “It would be outrageous for Ecuador, which always supported the international moratorium against Terminator, to open the gate to this terrible technology at the national level. Instead, Ecuador should legislate a ban on the import, development, trials and commercialization of Terminator seeds, as Brazil has already done.”

For more information:

Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group (México) etcmexico@etcgroup.org, tel +52 (55) 5563 2664
Elizabeth Bravo, Acción Ecológica (Ecuador) ebravo@rallt.org, tel + 593 (2) 254 7516
María José Guazzelli, Ban Terminator Campaign, (Brazil), mariajose.guazzelli@gmail.com

End Note:
[1] The second paragraph of article 26 of the Law on Food Sovereignty approved February 18th 2009, by the Ecuadorian National Assembly said : Las materias primas que contengan insumos de origen transgénico  únicamente podrán ser importadas y procesadas, siempre y cuando cumplan con los requisitos de sanidad e inocuidad y que su capacidad  de reproducción como semillas sea inhabilitada por trozamiento, respetando el principio de precaución, de modo que no atenten contra  la salud humana, la soberanía alimentaria y los ecosistemas. (…)

The text proposed by President Rafael Correa on March 19th says: Las materias primas que contengan insumos de origen transgénico  únicamente podrán ser importadas y procesadas, siempre y cuando cumplan con los requisitos de sanidad e inocuidad y que su capacidad  de reproducción como semillas sea inhabilitada, respetando el principio de precaución, de modo que no atenten contra  la salud humana, la soberanía alimentaria y los ecosistemas.(…)

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Where do you think Tamiflu comes from, by the way?

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I find it downright comedic that Big Pharma and the world's health authorities extract their "champion" anti-viral drug Tamiflu from a Chinese Medicine herb, and then they go out of their way to announce to people that herbs and natural remedies are useless against influenza. If that's the case then why are they using herbs to make their own medicine?

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H1N1 influenza is not a hoax. But the way it's being reported by health authorities and the mainstream media certainly is. The scam in all this is what they leave out of the stories -- the fact that human beings live among a huge natural medicine chest of anti-viral drugs found in every city park, every forest, every swamp and every open field.

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1850's
Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian-Hungarian obstetrician working in a clinic that delivers babies, is labeled "insane" by his fellow doctors for having the audacity to suggest that doctors should wash their hands between delivering babies. He's fired from his job, ostracized by the medical community and later dies in an insane asylum and is only vindicated long after his death when it is realized that, indeed, infections are spread from one patient to another by physicians who are too lazy, stubborn or egoistic to simply wash their hands. (A lack of hand washing continues to be the primary reason why MRSA and other superbugs are spread in hospitals today...)

1920's
Don't breastfeed your babies! Use infant formula instead. It's more "high-tech." Cow's milk is obviously healthier for your babies than mother's milk, right? That's what the doc says... Result: Tens of millions of mothers stopped breastfeeding their babies, resulting in widespread nutritional deficiencies that impacted those children for life. The pushing of infant formula onto mothers continues today in hospitals across the country which are paid by infant formula manufacturers to give free samples of infant formula to new mothers, hoping they will stop breastfeeding and start buying formula. (Saving grace: A few courageous pediatricians now speak out forcefully about the importance of breastfeeding...)

1930's
Smoking while pregnant? No problem. Doctors recommend Camels more than any other cigarette! Result: Massive chemical toxicity of the bodies of newborns. Increased cancer risk, reduced brain development and a lifetime of immune system disorders. (Cigarette ads routinely appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association for well over a decade.)

1940's
Need a new pair of shoes for your kid? Go size 'em up with the fluoroscope X-ray machine at your local shoe store! Never mind the radiation exposure of 20 - 75 rems per minute! See wikipedia article here. Result: Massive increase in cancer among parents and children who visited the shoe stores. Doctors remained silent on this significant health risk for decades while millions were harmed -- even after strong evidence pointed to the fact that X-ray radiation caused cancer.

1950's
Hey pregnant women, take thalidomide for your cancer! Don't worry about your unborn children. This chemical is perfectly safe! Result: 10,000 children born with physical deformities. Doctors continued to use infants and pregnant women in pharmaceutical experiments for the next fifty years. See Vaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Woman and Inmates (1845 - 2007).

1960's
Feed your children processed foods! White bread is good for them, don't you know? And monosodium glutamate is perfectly healthy for children, which is why food companies add it to baby food! So is saccharin, hydrogenated oils and sodium nitrite in processed meat. Result: Massive malnutrition, liver damage, and the beginnings of the diabetes and obesity epidemics that would sweep the nation over the next generation.

1970's
Place mercury into the mouths of your little children by having their cavities filled with "silver" fillings (made with 40% mercury, a potent neurotoxin). Result: Widespread mercury toxicity in children, resulting in a sharp increase in neurological conditions, including behavioral disorders, infertility and autism. Ignorant, obstinate dentists continue to use mercury fillings today, and the American Dental Association remains in full support of this extremely dangerous heavy metal that results in the mass poisoning of children.

Your kid have a cold? It's probably because their tonsils need to be removed! Tonsils have no biological function anyway, doctors claimed. Result: Over the last several decades, surgeons have removed tens of millions of tonsils, maiming children with a medically useless procedure that has now been proven virtually worthless. But it sure did raise funds to pay for the luxury German sedans driven by those surgeons!

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