Comment about the Anti-GMO

Dear Anonymous,

Green Greetings.

Thank you very much for your comment. At least I must dare to salute your caurage to comment like 'anti-GMO hysteria', though it sounds rude and nonesense at the same time. Anyway.The main ambition behind the creation of GMO is not to feed you or the hunger people around the world. Its main goal is to create wealth plyaing with the genes. The manipulation of gene is not done for the betterment of nature, human beings or the crop itself as its said. It's done to get more money out of it.Our natural rice varieties are so good that we don't need any cold or drought tolerant rice varieties. Do you know about Chhomrong local or Ghaiya2 rice variety in Nepal. They are completely drought tolerant. Do you know about Jumli Marshi, its the rice that is cultivated in the highest altitude of the earth, in Nepal. Without any genetic modification.

Just think, GE advocates are saying that they are creating Golden Rice for Vitamin A. But do you know, Vitamin A deficiency is there, where people can afford for Golden rice. No. Its there, where people can't afford for the local rice alone. Even for the non patented local rice, more strictly. And what's about other vitamins and minerals we need. Do you think human beings need only vitamin A, nothing else. No. We need lots of vitamins and minerals. If poor people could afford for the golden rice, even then, they have to go to the medical stores for buying capsules for calcium, iron, phosphorus, iodine, vitamins B1,B2,B6, B12 etc, C, D, E and so on. Then how many genetic engineering those greedy (who exploit nature for money) scientists will do? Its not a joke.

Secondly, the process of genetic engineering in not a sure and secure technique. I don't know which field you belong to. But as a student of biotechnology in my college days I knew this. And I am still updated about the detail process of genetic transformation and the techniques developed so far today. None of the techniques are safe and secure. Whether they are micro-injection, gene gun, vector mediated or any other methods you apply for. You can't predict the insertion of the gene exactly. It works as per the function of enzymes and the paliandromes formed there of.

In the third point, whats about the local varieties and biodiversity. The advocates of GM are taking money from multinationals and advocating for them. Do you belive patenting a plant, a crop or an animal? Popeple and farmers in the earth have developed, preserved and conserved these crops, animals, and the nature for the centuries. And how one can dare to claim for a patent by manipulating a gene in it? How can he patent a plant, a crop or any organism? Whats about the horizontal gene transfer ? Whats about the health impact as a result of GE. Thousand of workers in the GE corn fields in philipines, USA and Canada are dying due to pollen allergies of Bt Corn. What's about the flocks of sheeps dying by grazing in the Bt cotton fild in India ?What's about the Bees clolony collapse syndrome in Honey bees? What's about the Monarch moth? Whats about the resistance in the insects? What about the super bugs and super weeds? Are these all some minimal subjects? No. Not at all.

And do you belive genes or organisms are patentable? Are those the invention of any 'fool' scientist who does not feel any shy or shame to claim the patent. People may find genes. They may determine the sequence of the genes. But they can't create it. Can they? No. Its the nature that creates gene. They are from the nature, and they are in the nature. In GE what a GE worker does is to copy a gene from one organism and to insert it into naother. No body can create gene. No body can create an organism. They can only manipulate them. So how can they patent them. These are the properties of the nature alone. Not of a single human being.

So the economic and the political interest behind the GE is very dangerous. Generally people with a little knowledge about biotechnology think that they are the experts in Biotechnology and they advocate without thinking what they are advocating for. Creation of the GE is useless. Anti natural. Anti human being. Its done for the exploitation of th people at all.

So we say,

La viva Biodiversity,

La viva Food Sovereighnty,

No to GE!

No To GMOs!

Hoping for your regular comments.

Nahendra Khadka,

Chairperson,

Youth Peasants' Federation, Nepal

NO To GE For Food Sovereignty

What's wrong with genetic engineering (GE)?

Genetic engineering enables scientists to create plants, animals and micro-organisms by manipulating genes in a way that does not occurnaturally. These genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can spread through nature and interbreed with natural organisms, thereby contaminating non 'GE' environments and future generations in an unforeseeable and uncontrollable way. Their release is 'genetic pollution' and is a major threat because GMOs cannot be recalled once released into the environment. Because of commercial interests, the public is being denied theright to know about GE ingredients in the food chain, and therefore losing the right to avoid them despite the presence of labelling laws in certain countries. Biological diversity must be protected and respected as the global heritage of humankind, and one of our world's fundamental keys to survival. Governments are attempting to address the threat of GE with international regulations such as the Biosafety Protocol.

We believe:

• GMOs should not be released into the environment since there is not an adequate scientific understanding of their impact on the environment and human health.
• We advocate immediate interim measures such as labelling of GE ingredients, and the segregation of genetically engineered crops and seeds from conventional ones.
• We also oppose all patents on plants, animals and humans, as well as patents on their genes. Life is not an industrial commodity. When we force life forms and our world's food supply to conform to human economic models rather than their natural ones, we do so at our own peril.
  

Find out more:

- Go to the Food section to find out about: labelling legislation for GE products inyour country, how GE crops are used in animal feed and the corporate giants who are trying to control what you eat.

- Go to the Feeding the world - facts versus fiction section: to find out the truth about world hunger and why GE crops will not help.

- Go to the GE agriculture and genetic pollution section to find out about: the dangers of GE agriculture, which crops are currently being developed, genetic pollution and the dangers of patenting life.

- Go to the Biosafety Protocol section to find out about this important legislation that regulates the transboundary movements of GE and who is for and against it.

- Go to the Failings of GE section to find out about how the biotech industry is basing its products on crude and old-fashioned science.

Say NO TO Genetic Engineering.
SAY NO to Patent in Life Forms.
Say NO to GM Crops and GM Foods.
Declare South Asia, A GM Free Zone.
Live Long Food Sovereignty.
Live Long Peasants' Unity.

Interaction Programme on Rice

All Nepal Peasants Federation Hold Interaction Programme on GE rice
15th and 16h August, 2009
Kathmandu, Nepal

ANPFa is launching different types of activities regarding the issue of rice. According to PANAP call 2009-10 as year of rice action, ANPFa is engaged with series of programmes like peasants school on YORA, interaction programme with farmers on the spot during plantation, weeding and harvesting time. The concept of BEA is increasing spontaneously in Nepal. By its pressure, lobbying and Advocacy, government was compelled to declare subside for organic farmers. In the continuous YORA programme, ANPFa organized two days interaction programme on the 15th and 16th of August, 2009 on rice cultivation. 50 participants from Nepal took part in the discussion programme including National committee members of different peasant organizations, Peasants from different castes, ethnic groups, and religions; women; dalit; indigenous people; and other minorities including the disabled and people from remote areas, Representatives of non-governmental organizations, scientists and researchers, Youth Peasants and Media with Specific objectives to share information with rice farmers on genetically engineered rice, discussing the impact of rice farming on the Nepalese economy, promoting the System of Rice Intensification rice cultivation method and establishing linkages and networks between like-minded organizations and people working to protect rice culture and diversity.
In the programme various distinguished persons presented on topics related to rice production in Nepal.
Dr. Nanda Bahadur Singh presented under heading Genetic Engineering and Recombinant DNA Technology. Under this topic he presented, What is genetic engineering? What are its uses? And also provided Thumbnail Sketch: Historical Gleanings of Genetic Engineering.
Mr. Keshav Lal Shrestha, Deputy President of ANPFa offered his paper on the topic Organic Farming in Nepal: Prospects and Challenges. In this paper he specially presented prospects and challenges of Organic rice production in Nepal.

Mr. Hari Parajuli, Secretary of ANPFa presented the paper on Genetically Engineered rice. During his presentation he provided various points for which we should say “No” to GE rice. According to him Bio-tech companies argue that their patented rice is needed to feed the world because of the gap between food production and human population. This argument is not acceptable and said that real cause of hunger and malnutrition is poverty and lack of access to food, which GE could not address. It is also noteworthy that 78 percent of all malnourished children in the developing world are live in countries with food surpluses. Similarly he provided various Health and Nutritional, Technical and Environmental problems on the basis of which GE rice should be opposed.

Moreover, Mr. Nahendra Khadka, the Chairperson of Youth Peasants' Federation, Nepal talked about the System of Rice Intensification and; Mr. Balram Banskota, the Deputy General Secretary of ANPFa shared about the Save Our Rice Campaign - its issues and challenges. There were serious discussions and participants actively participated with genuine reasons and practical suggestions.

Rice In Nepal

A. Introduction:

Nepal is an agrarian country in which the livelihood of 65.7 percent of the total population is based on agriculture. Agriculture contributes about 40 percent of the gross domestic products (GDP) of the nation, hence, is the back bone of the Nepalese economy. This newly established republic consists of a vast range of geographical diversity along with one of the richest biodiversity of the planet. Nepal's geography consists of low tropical plains and central plateaus that rise up to the world’s highest peaks. That gives rise to the different ecological and climatic zones starting from Kechanakal, Jhapa - 60 masl to the famous Mount Everest - 8,848 masl.

B. Rice in Nepal:

Nepal is a small country with only 14.7 million hectares total land area of which 3.1 million Ha is arable and cultivated; and 1.03 million Ha is arable but uncultivated. Among this, only 1.55 million hectares is under rice cultivation, from which 4.52 million metric ton rice grains were harvested with an average rice productivity 2.907 ton/Ha as of 2008/2009. For Nepalese people, rice is one of the most important principal crops and it is cultivated in 73 districts out of the total 75, leaving Mustang and Manang. Even in Mustang, nowadays, some experts are trying to cultivate rice is some glass houses in Marpha, the district headquarter. Rice is planted in irrigated, rainfed, and upland ecosystem. Among the rice cultivated area of Nepal, 70.13 percent is from Terai, 25.54 percent from mid-hill, and 4.33 percent from high-hill area.

Rice is the main cereal crop and the staple food for this agrarian country, accounting for almost 50% of the total food production prevailing since millennia. It's not just a grain for the poor Nepalese farmers; it provides straw for thatching and mat-making, fodder for livestock, bran for poultry and fishponds, and husk for fuel. Hence, it's also the main source of 'hand to mouth' for a major portion of the countrymen. It is also an integral part of the native Nepalese culture. Asar 15 of each year according to the local calendar is declared and celebrated as the ''National Rice Day'' in the country. Here, rice is not only related to the food source but it's been connected to the real life, livelihood and the native culture. Hence, it is the life, culture and the dignity of the Nepalese people.

Food Sovereignty

Introduction :
"Food sovereignty" is a term coined by members of Via Campesina in 1996 to refer to a policy framework advocated by a number of farmers, peasants, pastoralists, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, women, rural youth and environmental organizations, namely the claimed "right" of peoples to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to international market forces.
Food sovereignty can be defined as :
"Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be self reliant; to restrict the dumping of products in their markets; and to provide local fisheries-based communities the priority in managing the use of and the rights to aquatic resources. Food sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather, it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples to safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable production." (from the Statement on Peoples' Food Sovereignty by Via Campesina, et al. )

Principles:
Via Campesina's seven principles of food sovereignty include:
1. Food: A Basic Human Right. Everyone must have access to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food in sufficient quantity and quality to sustain a healthy life with full human dignity. Each nation should declare that access to food is a constitutional right and guarantee the development of the primary sector to ensure the concrete realization of this fundamental right.
2. Agrarian Reform: A genuine agrarian reform is necessary which gives landless and farming people – especially women – ownership and control of the land they work and returns territories to indigenous peoples. The right to land must be free of discrimination the basis of gender, religion, race, social class or ideology; the land belongs to those who work it.
3. Protecting Natural Resources: Food Sovereignty entails the sustainable care and use of natural resources, especially land, water, and seeds and livestock breeds. The people who work the land must have the right to practice sustainable management of natural resources and to conserve biodiversity free of restrictive intellectual property rights. This can only be done from a sound economic basis with security of tenure, healthy soils and reduced use of agro-chemicals.
4. Reorganizing Food Trade : Food is first and foremost a source of nutrition and only secondarily an item of trade. National agricultural policies must prioritize production for domestic consumption and food self-sufficiency. Food imports must not displace local production nor depress prices.
5. Ending the Globalization of Hunger: Food Sovereignty is undermined by multilateral institutions and by speculative capital. The growing control of multinational corporations over agricultural policies has been facilitated by the economic policies of multilateral organizations such as the WTO, World Bank and the IMF. Regulation and taxation of speculative capital and a strictly enforced Code of Conduct for TNCs is therefore needed.
6.Social Peace: Everyone has the right to be free from violence. Food must not be used as a weapon. Increasing levels of poverty and marginalization in the countryside, along with the growing oppression of ethnic minorities and indigenous populations, aggravate situations of injustice and hopelessness. The ongoing displacement, forced urbanization, repression and increasing incidence of racism of smallholder farmers cannot be tolerated.
7.Democratic control: Smallholder farmers must have direct input into formulating agricultural policies at all levels. The United Nations and related organizations will have to undergo a process of democratization to enable this to become a reality. Everyone has the right to honest, accurate information and open and democratic decision-making. These rights form the basis of good governance, accountability and equal participation in economic, political and social life, free from all forms of discrimination. Rural women, in particular, must be granted direct and active decisionmaking on food and rural issues.
Food sovereignty is increasingly being promoted as an alternative framework to the narrower concept of food security, which mostly focuses on the technical problem of providing adequate nutrition. For instance, a food security agenda that simply provides surplus grain to hungry people would probably be strongly criticised by food sovereignty advocates as just another form of commodity dumping, facilitating corporate penetration of foreign markets, undermining local food production, and possibly leading to irreversible biotech contamination of indigenous crops with patented varieties. U.S. taxpayer subsidized exports of Bt corn to Mexico since the passage of NAFTA is a case in point.

History:
At the Forum for Food Sovereignty in Sélingué, Mali, 27 February 2007, about 500 delegates from more than 80 countries adopted the Declaration of Nyéléni, which says in part:
Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers. Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations.
Writing in Food First's Backgrounder, fall 2003, Peter Rosset argues that "Food sovereignty goes beyond the concept of food security… [Food security] means that… [everyone] must have the certainty of having enough to eat each day[,] … but says nothing about where that food comes from or how it is produced." Food sovereignty includes support for smallholders and for collectively owned farms, fisheries, etc., rather than industrializing these sectors in a minimally regulated global economy. In another publication, Food First describes "food sovereignty" as "a platform for rural revitalization at a global level based on equitable distribution of farmland and water, farmer control over seeds, and productive small-scale farms supplying consumers with healthy, locally grown food."
The preface to the ITDG publishing / FIAN paper on food sovereignty says: "The Food Sovereignty policy framework starts by placing the perspective and needs of the majority at the heart of the global food policy agenda and embraces not only the control of production and markets, but also the Right to Food, people’s access to and control over land, water and genetic resources, and the use of environmentally sustainable approaches to production. What emerges is a persuasive and highly political argument for refocusing the control of food production and consumption within democratic processes rooted in localized food systems."
In April 2008 the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), an intergovernmental panel under the sponsorship of the United Nations and the Worldbank, adopted the follwing definition: "Food sovereignty is defined as the right of peoples and sovereign states to democratically determine their own agricultural and food policies."
In September 2008, Ecuador became the first country to enshrine food sovereignty in its constitution. As of late 2008, a law is in the draft stages that is expected to expand upon this constitutional provision by banning genetically modified organisms, protecting many areas of the country from extraction of non-renewable resources, and to discourage monoculture. The law as drafted will also protect biodiversity as collective intellectual property and recognize the Rights of Nature.

Food Sovereignty: A Right for All

The Failure Since 1996 and the New Official Declaration

The social movements, farmer, fisherfolk, pastoralists', indigenous peoples', environmentalist, women's organizations, trade unions, and NGOs gathered here in Rome, express our collective disappointment in, and rejection of, the official Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later. Far from analyzing and correcting the problems that have made it impossible to make progress over the past five years toward eliminating hunger, this new plan of action compounds the error of "more of the same failed medicine" with destructive prescriptions that will make the situation even worse.

The 1996 Plan of Action has not failed because of a lack of political will and resources, but rather it has failed because it supports policies that lead to hunger, policies that support economic liberalization for the South and cultural homogeneity, which are backed by military force if the first wave of prescriptive actions fail. Only fundamentally different policies, which are based on the dignity and livelihoods of communities can end hunger. We affirm our belief that this is possible and urgently needed.

Since 1996 governments and international institutions have presided over globalization and liberalization, intensifying the structural causes of hunger and malnutrition. These have forced markets open to dumping of agricultural products, privatization of basic social and economic support institutions, the privatization and commodification of communal and public land, water, fishing grounds and forests. Parallel to this, we witness the increasingly brutal repression of social movements resisting the New World Order.

This political will has also opened the doors to the unbridled monopolization and concentration of resources and productive processes in the hands of a few giant corporations. The imposition of intensive, externally dependent models of production has destroyed the environments and livelihoods of our communities. Furthermore, it has created food insecurity and has put the focus on short-term productivity gains using harmful technologies such as GMOs.

The results have been the displacements of peoples and massive migration, the loss of jobs that pay living wages, the destruction of the land and other resources that peoples depend on, an increase in polarization between rich and poor and within and between North and South, a deepening of poverty around the world, and an increase of hunger in the vast majority of nations.

There will be no progress toward the goal of eliminating hunger without a reversal of these policies and trends, but the current declaration offers no hope of such a reversal. It emphasizes trade liberalization, the greatest force undermining livelihoods around the world, has diluted the concept of the human right to food, proposes more enhanced neoliberal structural adjustment in the guise of HIPC programs, recommends more emphasis on biotechnology and genetic engineering, and fails to support strengthening of production by the poor themselves for local markets or the radical redistribution of access to productive resources that is fundamental to real change for the better. On the basis of this plan of action, no amount of political will or resources will lead to a major reduction in hunger or the poverty that underlies it.

Food Sovereignty: The Fundamental Approach

In contrast to the proposed International Alliance Against Hunger, which is worse than "more of the same medicine", we counterpose the unifying concept of Food Sovereignty as the umbrella under which we outline the actions and strategies that are needed to truly end hunger.

What is Food Sovereignty?
Food Sovereignty is the RIGHT of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies.

Food Sovereignty requires:

Placing priority on food production for domestic and local markets, based on peasant and family farmer diversified and agroecologically based production systems
Ensuring fair prices for farmers, which means the power to protect internal markets from low-priced, dumped imports
Access to land, water, forests, fishing areas and other productive resources through genuine redistribution, not by market forces and World Bank sponsored "market-assisted land reforms."
Recognition and promotion of women's role in food production and equitable access and control over productive resources
Community control over productive resources, as opposed to corporate ownership of land, water, and genetic and other resources
Protecting seeds, the basis of food and life itself, for the free exchange and use of farmers, which means no patents on life and a moratorium on the genetically modified crops which lead to the genetic pollution of essential genetic diversity of plants and animals.
Public investment in support for the productive activities of families, and communities, geared toward empowerment, local control and production of food for people and local markets.
Food Sovereignty means the primacy of people's and community's rights to food and food production, over trade concerns. This entails the support and promotion of local markets and producers over production for export and food imports.

To achieve Food Sovereignty:

We will strengthen our social movements, and develop the organizations of farmers, women, indigenous peoples, workers, fisherfolk and the urban poor in each of our countries
We will advance regional and international solidarity and cooperation, and strengthen our common struggles
We will struggle to realize genuine agrarian and fisheries reform, rangeland and forestry reform, and achieve comprehensive and integral redistribution of productive resources in favor of the poor and the landless
We will fight for the strong guarantee of the rights of workers to organize, bargain collectively, have safe and dignified working conditions and living wages
We will struggle for the equal access of women to productive resources and the end to patriarchal structures in agriculture and socio-economic and cultural aspects of food.
We will fight for the right of Indigenous peoples to their cultures, domain, and productive resources.
We call for an end to the neoliberal economic polices being imposed by the World Bank, WTO, the IMF and Northern countries and other multilateral and regional free trade agreements, such as the FTAA and NEPAD
We demand the removal of agriculture from the WTO
We will fight to stop genetic engineering and the patenting of life and demand an immediate ban of terminator and similar genetic use restriction technologies
We demand an end to the passing off of GMO food in food aid
We demand an immediate stop to the war on people and the land around the world and an end to the repression of peoples' movements, as well as an immediate end to the illegal occupation of Palestine, the embargoes of Cuba and Iraq and the use of food as an instrument of blackmail
We demand support for the development and dissemination of agroecological systems of production
We call for a Convention on Food Sovereignty in order to enshrine the principles of Food Sovereignty in international law and institute food sovereigntyas the principal policy framework for addressing food and agriculture.
Finally, "one size fits all" policies like those emanting from the World Bank, WTO and IMF must be replaced with a vision of "one world with room for many worlds," where strength and human dignity are built through solidarity and respect for diversity, and all countries and peoples have the right to define their own policies.

To that end, we resolve to build social awareness and our movements for the fight to defeat the WTO at Cancun in September of 2003.

Thanks.