Seeds of Suicide

I recently came across the following poem at http://www.banterminator.org/News-Updates/Audio-and-Video

Something's In the Garden

The wind howls before the dawn

Something's in the garden

Look out, see what's going on

Oh, the winds they blow

In a shroud of secrecy

Something's in the garden

A suicide technology

Oh, it's got to go

The corporate biotech machine

Something's in the garden

Unveils the Terminator gene

Oh, the winds they blow

Inserting a genetic crime

Something's in the garden

Sterile seed at harvest time

Oh, it's got to go

The winds they blow across the fields of every nation

Our seed we been sowing for a hundred generations

Till it's banned in every land we'll fight the Terminator

Oh, no it's got to go!

The desperate poor are locked in the sights...

Of its almighty appetites...

Wearing a boy scout disguise...

To hijack the global food supply...

The winds they blow...

Peasant farmers stand betrayed

Wisdom stolen, debt unpaid

Protect the right to save our seed

For justice and food sovereignty

The winds they blow...

Many food products we consume today contain genetically modified ingredients. A genetically modified organism (GMO) is one that has a foreign gene injected into its embryonic cells. Such "engineered" plants and animals are referred to as GMO's.

The GMO technology threatens livelihoods throughout the developing world and locks farmers into bio serfdom. To begin with, farmers have to pay far more for their seeds because they are prohibited from saving the seeds from the previous harvests as they had been traditionally doing for thousands of years.

The GM crops destroy the micro-organisms of the soil and the food chain that depend on it - weeds, insects, birds and other wildlife, and replace it with genetically uniform crops that are more susceptible to disease. They require the use of highly toxic ‘broad spectrum' herbicides designed to wipe out all plants other than the crops that have been genetically engineered to tolerate the herbicide.

Not content with contractual and legal restriction of farmers' rights, biotechnology giants like Monsanto have developed ‘suicide seeds': seeds engineered to produce sterile crops. This technology ensures that farmers have no option but to return to the seed companies year after year.

The major agro biotech companies are also developing ‘traitor technology', where seeds are engineered to produce negative traits unless treated with the company's own chemicals. The two GM techniques are known as "genetic use restriction technologies" (GURTS).

The genetic engineering process is such that genes can also be transferred between distant species that would never interbreed in nature. Thereafter, secondary, unintended gene transfer can take place from GM crops released into the environment.

Transgenic contamination (contamination of the natural environment by GM crops) by cross-pollination, by wind or in other ways is well established. Biotechnology giant Monsanto took legal action against Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser for allegedly using its GM canola seeds without paying a $37-per-hectare fee for the privilege. Schmeiser argued that he never bought Monsanto's GM canola; either the canola seed blew into his field from a passing truck or his crop might have been contaminated by pollination, and sued the company for contaminating his fields. But the Court, in 2001, upheld that Schmeiser violated patent rights held by Monsanto and ordered him to pay $19,000 in damages for using Roundup Ready canola and also cover Monsanto's court costs of $153,000.

The Court cited the WTO principle of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPs, as its ground. The polluted, not the polluter, must pay!

Due to the threat of contamination, it is difficult for normal crops or organic crops to remain free from the impact of GM crops once these have been released. There are evidences of the grave risks GM foods pose for human and animal health and for the environment, including creating new strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria, new viruses from those introduced into the transgenic plants, causing reactivation of dormant viruses and producing harmful effects including cancer.

As worldwide concern for food safety grows, it is likely that there will be increasing demand for organically grown crops and crops which are not contaminated by GM crops. Therefore we will be surrendering premium world markets if we allow our crops to be contaminated by GMO's.

The GM crops under field trials in India are: brinjal, cabbage, cauliflower, chickpea, cotton, groundnut, maize, mustard, okra, pigeon pea, potato, rice, sorghum and tomato. ( Source: Press Information Bureau, Date: July 26, 2007)