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Seed Hunting Biopirates disguised as Saviours
By ras | October 21, 2008
Knowing I was interested in seeds, a well meaning friend of mine cut out an article from the Australian for me entitled Seed detectives dig for diversity, an article about a film called The Seed Hunter starring a jovial fellow travelling to the far reaches of the earth delving for ancient land races of seeds, in order to save the world from starvation. Having been exposed to a lot of information about food security and in particular seeds of food crops, I was immediately interested and suspicious.
GE Corn is even poisoning people in the
No project is more interesting at the moment than a curious project in one of the worlds most remote spots,
On this God-forsaken island Bill Gates is investing tens of his millions along with the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation and the Government of Norway, among others, in what is called the doomsday seed bank. Officially the project is named the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian
The seed bank is being built inside a mountain on
Did we miss something here? Their press release stated, so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future. What future do the seed banks sponsors foresee, that would threaten the global availability of current seeds, almost all of which are already well protected in designated seed banks around the world?
Anytime Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto and Syngenta get together on a common project, its worth digging a bit deeper behind the rocks on
The first notable point is who is sponsoring the doomsday seed vault. Here joining the Norwegians are, as noted, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the US agribusiness giant DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred, one of the worlds largest owners of patented genetically-modified (GMO) plant seeds and related agrichemicals; Syngenta, the Swiss-based major GMO seed and agrichemicals company through its Syngenta Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation, the private group who created the gene revolution with over $100 million of seed money since the 1970s; CGIAR, the global network created by the Rockefeller Foundation to promote its ideal of genetic purity through agriculture change.
We can legitimately ask why Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation along with the major genetic engineering agribusiness giants such as DuPont and Syngenta, along with CGIAR are building the Doomsday Seed Vault in the
Who uses such a seed bank in the first place? Plant breeders and researchers are the major users of gene banks. Todays largest plant breeders are Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and Dow Chemical, the global plant-patenting GMO giants. Since early in 2007 Monsanto holds world patent rights together with the United States Government for plant so-called Terminator or Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT). Terminator is an ominous technology by which a patented commercial seed commits suicide after one harvest. Control by private seed companies is total. Such control and power over the food chain has never before in the history of mankind existed.
This clever genetically engineered terminator trait forces farmers to return every year to Monsanto or other GMO seed suppliers to get new seeds for rice, soybeans, corn, wheat whatever major crops they need to feed their population. If broadly introduced around the world, it could within perhaps a decade or so make the worlds majority of food producers new feudal serfs in bondage to three or four giant seed companies such as Monsanto or DuPont or Dow Chemical.
That, of course, could also open the door to have those private companies, perhaps under orders from their host government, Washington, deny seeds to one or another developing country whose politics happened to go against
These private companies, Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Chemical hardly have an unsullied record in terms of stewardship of human life. They developed and proliferated such innovations as dioxin, PCBs, Agent Orange. They covered up for decades clear evidence of carcinogenic and other severe human health consequences of use of the toxic chemicals. They have buried serious scientific reports that the worlds most widespread herbicide, glyphosate, the essential ingredient in Monsantos Roundup herbicide that is tied to purchase of most Monsanto genetically engineered seeds, is toxic when it seeps into drinking water. Denmark banned glyphosate in 2003 when it confirmed it has contaminated the countrys groundwater. The diversity stored in seed gene banks is the raw material for plant breeding and for a great deal of basic biological research. Several hundred thousand samples are distributed annually for such purposes. The UNs FAO lists some 1400 seed banks around the world, the largest being held by the United States Government. Other large banks are held by
CGIAR, set up in 1972 by the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation to spread their Green Revolution agribusiness model, controls most of the private seed banks from the
Now we come to the heart of the danger and the potential for misuse inherent in the
The explicit aim of the eugenics lobby funded by wealthy elite families such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harriman and others since the 1920s, has embodied what they termed negative eugenics, the systematic killing off of undesired bloodlines. Margaret Sanger, a rapid eugenicist, the founder of Planned Parenthood International and an intimate of the Rockefeller family, created something called The Negro Project in 1939, based in Harlem, which as she confided in a letter to a friend, was all about the fact that, as she put it, we want to exterminate the Negro population. A small
In the 1990s the UNs World Health Organization launched a campaign to vaccinate millions of women in
Because of that curious anomaly, Comite Pro Vida de Mexico, a Roman Catholic lay organization became suspicious and had vaccine samples tested. The tests revealed that the Tetanus vaccine being spread by the WHO only to women of child-bearing age contained human Chorionic Gonadotrophin or hCG, a natural hormone which when combined with a tetanus toxoid carrier stimulated antibodies rendering a woman incapable of maintaining a pregnancy. None of the women vaccinated were told.
It later came out that the Rockefeller Foundation along with the Rockefellers Population Council, the World Bank (home to CGIAR), and the United States National Institutes of Health had been involved in a 20-year-long project begun in 1972 to develop the concealed abortion vaccine with a tetanus carrier for WHO. In addition, the Government of Norway, the host to the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault, donated $41 million to develop the special abortive Tetanus vaccine. 12
Is it a coincidence that these same organizations, from
Many of the US Government dollars spent on biowarfare research involve genetic engineering. MIT biology professor Jonathan King says that the growing bio-terror programs represent a significant emerging danger to our own population. King adds, while such programs are always called defensive, with biological weapons, defensive and offensive programs overlap almost completely.
These seeds contain ancient information and it is not something science and law can manipulate for the production of more money. It is time to start undoing some of the mess created by this artificial agriculture and return to our primal origins leaving the genetic manipulation to nature, the divine and inexplicable. This video trailer is closer to the truth.
Topics: Activism |
October 21st, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
October 21st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
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October 24th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Great article! I’m glad you mention Dow Chemical, because many focus on companies such as Syngenta and Monsanto. If you want to learn more about Dow’s misdeed with other important campaigns, check out our website at:
www.thetruthaboutdow.org
October 27th, 2008 at 4:26 am
[…] Seed Hunting Biopirates disguised as Saviours Epicyte was since acquired by a North Carolina biotech company. Astonishing to learn was that Epicyte had developed its spermicidal GMO corn with research funds from the US Department of Agriculture, the same USDA which, … […]
December 7th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Hyderabad , Oct 16 (IANS) The world’s largest aircraft Airbus A380 landed at Begumpet Airport here for static display at the ongoing India Aviation-2008… with over 10 million population has gone up to 26 from four in 1970. The number US
January 20th, 2009 at 12:44 am
Why bash the seed hunter with such a rant?
If the seed collections which are carefully maintained by the different gene banks had not been set up by people with foresight during the last century, there wouldn’t be much genetic diversity around today to help plant breeders to create new cultivars.
There is still a lot of genetic diversity on this earth that is not protected from extinction. The main agricultural crops are probably the best preserved. What about all the minor ones?
The seed hunter story highlighted the need to keep on collecting. For example, there are very very few wild chickpeas available for breeding disease resistant chickpeas (the stuff to make hommous from). Wild chickpeas can still be found in some places. To make them accessible for plant breeding requires people to go out there and to get them. The collected material is then preserved in seed collections (gene banks). It is accessible as small samples to anyone who can demonstrate a justifiable interest in such material.
What are rastafaris going to do if their favourite weed cannot be grown anymore because it gets sick from incurable disease? They need to start looking for resistant strains. These are not necessarily the ones with with a favourable chemical composition. They may exist locally. Most likely they are not. The chances of finding what is needed increases with the genetic diversity that is available. A wide roaming search and extensive testing of all available varieties may be needed to find resistance. To ensure a supply of genetic diversity (germplasm) for such situations we need genebanks (seed collections).
Once a resistant strains has been found, then your favourite plant breeder enters the plot and helps to combine all the desirable characters in a new cultivar.
It is up to the plant breeder to decide how to get renumerated for the effort. If Monsanto does the job they may even add a glyphosate resistance gene to make the growing easier for you. This, however, attracts a fee. Other breeders protect their effort through plant variety rights (PVR) or patents. Your favourite plant breeder might work to earn respect and is not interested in financial gain. That’s cool.
Rastas should see that the genetic diversity of their favourite weed is also collected by seed hunters. Lobby your government, start your own genebank, ask the seed hunters who are still out there doing a fine job to keep an eye open for your favourite germoplasma, otherwise, when the proverbial s hits the fan, you may have to beg the Monsantos of this world to fix your problem in a test tube.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:44 am
Rastas have always known that you have to put in to take out. They have been saving the seeds of their crops since their inception as they live as subsistence farmers. They take responsibility for their own seed and food and don’t rely on others to supply a never ending source of food most of which is inferior or wasted. We don’t want roundup resistant plants, we want a return to organic farming where people take responsibility for the land and their food. The Green Revolution has been the biggest catastrophe of the twentienth century. Their may be a place for plant breeders however the industry has become a cesspool of corruption and inhumanity and it has to be regulated so the benefits can be utilised rather than the massive exploitiation that is currently taking place.
October 12th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
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