Petition to Support Farmers Saving Seed
Posted by: Kathie Brosemer (kathie) on December 10, 2004 at 23:43:22
from the agricultural-revolution dept.
From Stewart Wells, National Farmers Union President, originally published in Briarpatch Magazine.
Dear Briarpatch,
For some 15,000 years farmers and citizens have been freely selecting and growing, exchanging and breeding the seeds that have fundamentally changed our world from a hunter-gatherer society to a more specialized, opportunity-rich farming society. Now, however, the executive director of the Canadian Seed Trade Association is quoted as saying "I don't think farmers ought to have a legal right to save seeds." So much for 15,000 years of farmers and others selecting and domesticating the seeds that produce today's food supply. But the Seed Trade Association's stand really just represents that of seed companies, the largest of which are foreign multinationals like Monsanto and Cargill. It is hardly surprising that this bunch would be looking for ways to take more money from farmers.
Full story and link to petition, below.
If the Seed Trade Association has its way, consumers' choice of food will eventually be limited to what the seed companies "allow" farmers to grow. With the Canadian government withdrawing from publicly-funded research programs, this situation is drawing closer much quicker than most people realize.
In fact, the changes are already in the mill. Proposed amendments to the Plant Breeders Rights Act were posted on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) website on November 8. Farmers and citizens have only 60 days to respond to these proposed changes. It is urgent that people voice their concerns before January 8, either electronically or by writing directly to the Minister of Agriculture.
Some might be surprised that over the past two years the Grain Growers of Canada have been supporting this nonsense. In May of 2004, they helped publish a report called "The Report of the Seed Sector Advisory Committee," which supports the introduction of new prohibitions and restrictions on farmers. The Grain Growers of Canada claim they are an independent voice for the grain farmers of Canada, yet their report was produced with $600,000 of taxpayers' money from the Department of Agriculture and other help from the federal government. The Seed Sector Review is another example of organizations being co-opted and used by private industry to work against the interests of farmers, and this will continue to happen until real farmers and citizens put a stop to it.
An examination of the Seed Sector Report can be found by clicking on "Nine things farmers need to know" on the website of the National Farmers Union or by calling the NFU office at 306-652-9465.
A petition can be downloaded from www.nfu.ca or you can send your comments via email to Andrew Mitchell, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.
seeds of our destruction
by al jablan on 2005-01-04 02:25:55
I cant for the world of me understand what is the purpose of
enslaving atomising destroying every sector of our society.
Clearly the farmers are the most important as they supply the food ie the energy for the rest of us to simply live.
They took millemia toget organised and emerge from slavery and serfdom.
To whom is it advantageous to reenslave the last vestige of rural independence.
They are already slaves of government bureaucrats and banks, now the very material they work with will be removed from their control.
The Supreme Court did not understand this when it agreed to Monsantos trespassing and theft of the Sask farmer whose wheat got contaminated by neighbouring GM wheat.
The immediate threat is not just GM produce but terminator genes, the grain bought from seed companies will only germinate once, the crop will be sterile or rather not germinable.
We can only hope that they will fail as nature will bypass somehow this sinister plot and that the farmers and greens will unite and defeat this outrage.
But similar things are happening in other areas of life,
those who lied about taxation will of course be even worse than the savage uncommon nonsense counterrevolutionaries or suicide commandos.
They are to destroy education driving teachers to distraction and of course are well on their way of destroying what is left of health care.
The cut backs closures firings restucturing, coercing MDs into cooperatives - so they may be better controlled and supervised- they call it group practice or some other odious neologismI cant bother to learn eactly the same way as they browbeat teachers
and as we see force farmers into dangerous untested unnecessary
practices.
The aim is to control command and annihilate every area of human activity work production or of social utility.
But why?
Are they insane psychotic evil suicidal?
Ontario nay Canada a few decades ago was near the top of its historical development with superb educational health care systems
nutritious healthy food production.
What madness took over the politicians to destroy everything of all three parties by the way The NDP wasjust as keen on cut backs as they are on other liberal initiatives.
While each issue must be studied and understood I think it is imperative to seethe connexion between post office closures school amalgamation and GMO.
Aj