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Guy Kastler: FAO should support seed selection by peasants and small scale farmers
by La Vía Campesina 16 Feb '16

16 Feb '16

Guy Kastler: FAO should support seed selection by peasants and small scale farmers [1] Published on Tuesday, 16 February 2016 18:18 THE FAO SHOULD SUPPORT SEED SELECTION BY PEASANTS AND SMALL-SCALE FARMERS, AND IT SHOULD CONDEMN THE CONFISCATION OF CULTIVATED BIODIVERSITY THROUGH GENE PATENTING _ [2]La Via Campesina, Guy Kastler_ It was to be expected that, in order to discuss the subject of biotechnology, the FAO would call upon those who are using biotechnology in research and in industry. However, what was definitely not to be expected was for the FAO, in conducting its discussions on public policy and food policy, to turn almost exclusively to these same actors, while at the same time a very large number of peasant, small-scale farmer, and civil society organisations that are opposed to the uncontrolled development of biotechnology have not been invited to speak - or only in a very marginal way through the invitation that was sent to me. The organisations in question have released a public statement that I am asking you to take into consideration. Genetically-modified plants have not fulfilled their promises. The majority of them have been modified so as to be tolerant to herbicides. They have led to the rapid appearance of herbicide-resistant adventitious weeds, to an exponential rise in the use of ever more toxic herbicides, and, in turn, to serious harm to public health and to the environment. Peasant farmers and rural area residents and their families are the first victims of these negative effects. The other large class of genetically-modified plants produces insecticidal substances that lead to insects' becoming resistant - and thus to an already programmed agronomic failure. Here again, the first victims are the peasants and small-scale farmers who have lost their harvests, often despite additional use of toxic chemical insecticides. The genetic technologies used to produce these plants have caused numerous unintended and unforeseen effects that industry is desperately trying to hide. The most visible of these effects have been the loss of harvests and the decline in the quality of crops. Thus, the Burkina Faso cotton sector lost its place in the market, which it had won with much effort and which was based on the quality of its cotton fibre; with the switch to GMOs there was a drastic decline in quality. What good is it to increase yields if the harvest is unsaleable. Here, once more, peasants and small-scale farmers are the first to suffer, whereas the corporations that are responsible for such catastrophes simply say that they are unable to explain what happened. Genetically-modified seeds will always be of no importance for food security. Their purchase cost and the cost of the inputs that are indispensable for their cultivation limits their use to the only markets in which they are affordable: the production of industrially-farmed crops for animal feed in the rich countries, for agro-fuels, and for the emerging biomass economy - which is taking over agricultural land for non-food uses. Industry is not interested in the food crops that provide three quarters of the world's available food. The peasants and small-scale farmers who produce this food do not have enough money to buy GMOs and the inputs indispensable to their cultivation. GMOs are only a means of taking over their farmland so as to replace their food crops by the industrial monoculture of agro-exports. Every time genetically-modified plants are approved, the immense biodiversity of cultivated plants resulting from many centuries of selection by peasants and small-scale farmers is replaced by a few patented varieties. When pollen and seeds are moved by wind, by insects, or by farm equipment, patented genes are carried from one field to another. They contaminate peasant seeds, which are then considered as infringements of industry's patented varieties. That is how, in the United States, in less than 20 years, a point has been reached where patented GMOs represent 89% of the maize and 94% of the soya that is planted. The prohibition against farmers' reusing their own harvested seeds, as well as constituting a violation of their rights, also prevents them from adapting their crops to climate change. Climate change is not linear. At the moment when the seeds are planted, nobody knows what that year's weather is going to be like. Genes that are resistant to drought are useless in years when there are tornados or exceptional floods, and vice versa. The resilience of our crops in the face of the increasing violence of climate shocks, depends above all on their genetic diversity and on their adaptation to their local areas - and not on this or that new gene that has been patented in a laboratory. Only the selections made by peasants and small-scale farmers in their fields, from seeds that have been harvested locally, can foster such an adaptation; without them, there can be no real solution. The patents that accompany all GMOs are a false solution because they prohibit seed selection by peasants and small-scale farmers. Confronted with the rejection of GMOs by a large number of consumers, industry has invented new genetic modification techniques which it wants to have exempted from GMO regulations. These genetic engineering techniques consist of modifying the genes of plant cells that are grown in vitro. There is no possible question that they produce modified living organisms as included in the definition in the Cartagena Protocol. But, on the pretext that some of these techniques do not leave visible traces, in the plants that are finally sold on the market, of the genetic material that was introduced into the plant cells in order to modify their genome, industry wants these plants not to be classified as GMOs - so as to avoid both the international rules of the Cartagena Protocol and the labelling, evaluation, and follow-up requirements that are part of many national regulatory systems. In order to bring this about, industry is trying to limit the definition of GMOs so that it only applies to the insertion of recombinant DNA that can be found in the final product. It is inadmissible that the FAO, in its own publications, has taken up, and given credibility to, this flagrant violation of the only recognised international definition of GMOs given by the Cartagena Protocol. This new manoeuvre is all the more perverse because it allows industry to patent genes without distinguishing them from genes existing naturally in the seeds of peasants and small-scale farmers and in seed banks. In this way, the whole of available cultivated biodiversity comes under the control of the handful of multinationals holding the largest patent portfolios. Peasants and small-scale farmers and small seed selectors can no longer find out - in order to protect themselves - whether or not the seeds that they are using contain patented genes. This legal insecurity is leading to an acceleration of the extreme concentration of the seed industry that allows three multinationals to control more than half of today's world seed trade. It is also leading to the disappearance of the immense diversity of peasant seeds that are saved and renewed year after year by peasants and small-scale farmers in their fields. In order to contribute to this new biopiracy, the Divseek programme is making freely available information on the genetic sequences of all of the plant resources in the ITPGRFA's Multilateral System. In so doing, it is violating the obligations of prior consent and benefit sharing. ITPGRFA's complicity in collaborating with this programme is an unacceptable betrayal of the trust of millions of peasants and small-scale farmers who have entrusted it with their seeds. La Via Campesina and allied civil society organisations expect the FAO to put an immediate end to this new biopiracy and to any type of support for genetic modification technologies, the only purpose of which is to allow a handful of multinationals to take over and to patent the entirety of existing cultivated biodiversity. The FAO should support the peasants and small-scale farmers organisations and the researchers that are involved in collaborative peasant seed selection programmes which strengthen food sovereignty and peasant agroecology. Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/biodiversity-a… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/2016-02-16-Guy%20FAO.jpg

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Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN: More than 100 civil society organizations raise alarm about FAO biotechnology meeting
by La Vía Campesina 15 Feb '16

15 Feb '16

Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN [1] Published on Monday, 15 February 2016 10:37 PRESS RELEASE – LA VIA CAMPESINA, ETC AND GRAIN _ [2]_ _More than 100 civil society organizations raise alarm about FAO biotechnology meeting_ (Rome, Monday 15 February, 2016) Just when the biotech companies that make transgenic seeds are merging, the corporate vision of biotechnology is showing up at FAO. At today's opening of the three-day International symposium on agricultural biotechnologies convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, more than 100 civil society and social movement and organizations (CSOs) from four continents have issued a statement [3] denouncing both the substance and structure of the meeting, which appears to be another attempt by multinational agribusiness to redirect the policies of the UN agency toward support for Genetically-engineered crops and livestock. The global peasant and family farm movement, La Via Campesina, invited CSOs to sign the letter when the symposium's agenda became public. Two of the FAO keynote speakers are known proponents of GMOs, and the agenda and side events over the three days include speakers from the Biotechnology Industry Organization (a biotech trade group in the USA), Crop Life International (the global agrochemical trade association), DuPont (one of the world's largest biotech seed companies) and CEVA (a major veterinary medicine corporation), among others. FAO has only invited one speaker or panellist openly critical of GMOs. Worse, one of the two speakers at the opening session is a former assistant director general of FAO who has pushed for so-called Terminator seeds (GMO seeds programmed to die at harvest time forcing farmers to purchase new seeds every growing season), in opposition to FAO's own public statements. The second keynoter's speech is titled, "Toward Ending the Misplaced Global Debate on Biotechnology" - suggesting that the FAO symposium should be the moment for shutting down biotech criticism. In convening the biased symposium, FAO is bowing to industry pressure that intensified following international meetings on agroecology hosted by FAO in 2014 and 2015. The agroecology meetings were a model of openness to all viewpoints, from peasants to industry. But the biotech industry apparently prefers now to have a meeting they can control. This is not the first time FAO has been drawn into this game. In 2010, FAO convened a biotechnology conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, that blocked farmers from its organizing committee, and then tried to prevent their attendance at the conference itself. "We are alarmed that FAO is once again fronting for the same corporations, just when these companies are talking about further mergers amongst themselves, which would concentrate the commercial seeds sector in even fewer hands" the CSO statement denounces. It is clear, according to the Civil Society Statement, that industry wants to use FAO to re-launch their false message that genetically engineered crops can feed the world and cool the planet, while the reality is that nothing has changed on the biotech front. GMOs don't feed people, they are mostly planted in a handful of countries on industrial plantations for agrofuels and animal feed, they increase pesticide use, and they throw farmers off the land. Transnational biotech companies are trying to patent the planet's bodiversity, which shows that their main interest is to make enormous profits, and not to guarantee food security or food sovereignty. The industrial food system that these companies promote is also one of the main drivers of climate change. Confronted with the rejection of GMOs by many consumers and producers, the industry is now inventing new and possibly dangerous breeding techniques to genetically modify plants, without calling them GMOs. In doing so, they are trying to avoid current GMO regulations and trick consumers and farmers. The agroecology activities were much closer to the way that FAO should act, the Statement points out, "as a centre for knowledge exchange, without a hidden agenda on behalf of a few." Why does FAO now limit itself again to corporate biotechnology and deny the existence of peasant technologies? FAO should support the peasant technologies, that offer the most innovative, open source, and the effective pathway to ending hunger and malnutrition. It is time to stop pushing a narrow corporate agenda, says Civil Society. "The vast majority of the world's farmers are peasants, and it is peasants who feed the world. We need peasant-based technologies, not corporate biotechnologies." "It is high time that FAO puts an end to biopiracy and to its support for genetically modified crops, which only serve to allow a handful of transnational companies to patent and to grab all the existing biodiversity," said La Via Campesina leader Guy Kastler. "On the contrary, FAO should support farmers' organisations and researchers engaged in collaborative plant breeding in the service of food sovereignty and peasant agroecology". The statement and the list of signatories can be downloaded here: http://goo.gl/mjaZor [3] _Media contacts in Rome:_ Guy Kastler and other Via Campesina leaders Phone numbers: + 39 329 665 53 44 and +39 331 188 64 35 E-mail: lvcweb(a)viacampesina.org Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/biodiversity-a… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/2016-02-15-ETC-GRAIN-LVC.jpg [3] http://goo.gl/mjaZor

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Dairy Crisis: Enough evaluations, it’s high time for the Commission to act
by La Vía Campesina 04 Feb '16

04 Feb '16

Dairy Crisis: Enough evaluations, it's high time for the Commission to act [1] Published on Wednesday, 03 February 2016 19:47 [2]PRESS RELEASE Brussels, 2 February 2016 At the height of a crisis that has ruined thousands of dairy producers across Europe, the European Commission has once again chose to delay action, and opted for its usual practice of consultations, evaluations and studies. Claiming it is part of a larger effort to improve existing legislation, the EC has recently sent out a questionnaire to producer and agricultural organisations, alleging that by inquiring on the benefits and difficulties of the "Milk Package", the survey will improve its implementation in the field. ECVC believes that the current crisis of the milk sector and the desperate situation of milk producers demands measures that are well beyond the European Commission's conventional procedures of postponing decisions due to further studies, evaluations and the convening of experts to analyse what is clear to everyone: the complete failure of the measures contained in the "Milk Package". To assess the functioning of the "Milk Package" one only has to look out the window and behold the ruin of thousands of producers across the European Union and the disappearance of milk production in several regions, facts that have been pointed out by many sectorial organizations, including ECVC, after the High Level Group presented its recommendations. By favoring these narrow studies and evaluations, the European Commission, refuses to question its wrong assumptions that market volatility is inevitable and that the problem lies in the organizational model of production. What's more, it effectively closes the debate to other solutions, such as the restoring of an effective public instrument of production control that, among other things, assures the continuity of dairy farms - based on sustainable models- in all European territories. ECVC believes that it's high time to conclude and recognize, not to carry out further studies; not evaluate, but to take action for efficient tools of public regulations in order to maintain decent prices and fair incomes for dairy farmers, as well as to allow the control and adjustment of European production. _Contacts :_ Isabel Vilalba: (0034) 608905444 (ES) Jose -Miguel Pacheco: (0035) 1918736441 (PT, ES) Genevieve Savigny: (0033) 625551687 (EN, FR) Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/sustainable-pe… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/2016-02-03-EU%20Milk%20Crisis.jpg

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La Via Campesina - Electronic Newsletter January 2016
by La Vía Campesina 04 Feb '16

04 Feb '16

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Happy New Year!
by La Vía Campesina 23 Dec '15

23 Dec '15

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Happy 2016!
by La Vía Campesina 22 Dec '15

22 Dec '15

HAPPY 2016! [1] Published on Wednesday, 23 December 2015 00:40 [2] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/2-uncategorised/1946-happy-2016 [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/Tarjeta%20Ao%20nuevo%20EN%20Final.jpg

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La Via Campesina - Electronic Newsletter November-December 2015
by La Vía Campesina 22 Dec '15

22 Dec '15

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Nyéléni Newsletter 24: Forests, Foraging and the Commons
by La Vía Campesina 17 Dec '15

17 Dec '15

PUBLICATIONS NYÉLÉNI NEWSLETTER 24: FORESTS, FORAGING AND THE COMMONS Published on Thursday, 17 December 2015 23:37 THE NEW EDITION OF THE NYÉLÉNI NEWSLETTER IS NOW ONLINE! [1](Harare, December 17, 2015) About 75 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas in developing countries. Most survive on subsistence farming, artisanal fisheries and/or nomadic herding and many are landless, working as seasonal labour on farms, plantations, in fisheries and industry. Click here to download the English edition. [2] Their daily food needs are met primarily through local production, foraging, hunting and fishing - often by women - on small farms, common grazing lands and in woods, forests, streams, rivers and lakes. Reduced access to these ecosystems or decrease in the foods gathered in these environments can result in hunger and acute malnutrition. Read it directly in the website at www.nyeleni.org [3] ! For any further information, please contact info(a)nyeleni.org PLEASE CIRCULATE IT TO YOUR CONTACTS! Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/Portada%20En%20Nyeleni.png [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/stories/pdf/Nyeleni_Newsletter_Num_24_EN.… [3] http://www.nyeleni.org

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Wolf in a sheepskin: WTO reinvents and seeks legitimacy in Africa
by La Vía Campesina 16 Dec '15

16 Dec '15

WOLF IN A SHEEPSKIN: WTO REINVENTS AND SEEKS LEGITIMACY IN AFRICA [1] [2](Nairobi, December 15, 2015) After may years of ignoring African challenges posed by global trading system, the WTO- one of the principal instruments of global economic governance- comes to the continent to seek legitimacy. The WTO is trying to reinvent itself to appear as if it cares about Africa and has solutions to a myriad of problems (increasing poverty, unemployment and underemployment, collapse of social institutions, etc). African economies most of which are agro-based were ruined by the WTO which promotes developed countries and transnational corporations. By hosting the 10th ministerial meeting, Kenya thinks it will increase its income from tourism and foreign investments in other economic sectors. It tries to hoodwink other African governments to embrace WTO. Kenyan government seems to have taken the WTO bait. Kenya and Africa should not be hoodwinked but pull out of the WTO. If they don't, the only real deal they will get is a raw deal to further kill their economies, peasants, consumers, industries and livelihoods. In Nairobi, most negotiations by African governments are market driven, not driven by urge to protect local farmers and consumers. They should learn from the African Cotton 4 (C-4) countries whose economies have been destroyed by American distorting subsidies on cotton. Their issue has been before the WTO since 2002 and nothing has been done to punish the US for trade distortion up to now. Instead the US has offered them development aid to further ruin their agriculture through forcing them to purchase toxic agro-chemicals and GMOs to increase "agricultural productivity". Such US hypocrisy must be condemned and cannot be allowed at Nairobi MC10. It undermines countries' constitutions by imposing rules which compromises their policy space, human rights and deny FOOD SOVEREIGNTY. La Via Campesina and its partners (World March of Women Kenya, Center for Constitution Implementation, Dandora Must Change and Bunge la Mwananchi) are meeting in Nairobi under the banner "#EndWTO". We call for FOOD SOVEREIGNTY as the peoples' alternative to the corporate driven free trade regime of the WTO. NO MORE WTO! FOOD SOVEREIGNTY NOW! GLOBALIZE STRUGGLE! GLOBALIZE HOPE! #EndWTO #MC10 #StopFTAs #FoodSovereignty Twitter https://twitter.com/via_campesina [3] Website http://viacampesina.org/en/ [4] Facebook https://www.facebook.com/viacampesinaOFFICIAL?fref=ts [5] _FOR MORE INFORMATION AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS PLEASE CONTACT LVC SUPPORT TEAM:_ Mateus Santos (lvc.mateus(a)gmail.com) Ndabezinhle Nyoni (nyoni.ndabezinhle(a)viacampesina.org) Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/10-year… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/2015-12-16-WTO21.jpg [3] https://twitter.com/via_campesina [4] http://viacampesina.org/en/ [5] https://www.facebook.com/viacampesinaOFFICIAL?fref=ts

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COP21: The curtain falls on a masquerade
by La Vía Campesina 13 Dec '15

13 Dec '15

COP21: THE CURTAIN FALLS ON A MASQUERADE [1] LA VIA CAMPESINA, EUROPEAN COORDINATION VIA CAMPESINA, CONFÉDÉRATION PAYSANNE PRESS RELEASE (Paris, 12th of December 2015) After two weeks of heads of states taking centre stage to salve their consciences, COP21 has come up with an agreement that many worried in advance would offer nothing good for the peoples of the world. There is nothing binding for states, national contributions lead us towards a global warming of over 3°C--and multinationals are the main beneficiaries. It was essentially a media circus. However states know how to make binding commitments when it comes to signing free trade agreements. Those agreements threaten the democratic functioning of countries by merely serving the interests of multinationals. Once more, it is clear that money dictates the law, even taking precedence over the future of humanity. "Despite multiple attempts to silence us these past few weeks, the social movements have made their voices heard today," said Antolin Huascar, a peasant leader from Peru. "The future of the planet is in the hands of the people," he added. Peasants from across the world, from member organizations of Via Campesina, came together to warn others that the agricultural sector is being severely affected. While they are the guardians of a changing climate, they stressed that industrial agriculture is threatening their disappearance. At the same time, COP21 is further opening the door to financial speculation on nature, industrialisation of agriculture, and accelerating resource grabbing. "We, the peasants of the world, will now return to our territories and farms all the more determined to continue our struggle for food sovereignty for all the peoples of the world," Huascar concluded. The masquerade may be over, but the peasant fight will only continue to gain momentum. CONTACTS : Elina Bouchet, media contact (French) : 00 33 6 95 29 80 78 Solenne Garin, media contact (English, Spanish) : 00 33 6 10 04 83 69 and solenne.garin(a)viacampesina.org MORE INFORMATION ON THAT LAST DAY OF MOBILISATION : video [2], photos [3], cartoons. [4] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/-climat… [2] http://tv.viacampesina.org/Movements-denounce-dangerous-deal?lang=en [3] http://tv.viacampesina.org/December-12-2015-Last-actions-of?lang=en [4] http://tv.viacampesina.org/COP-21-Coups-de-crayons-sur-les?lang=en

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