It turns out you can’t trust Monsanto. The world’s largest seed and agbiotech company, made a landmark public promise in 1999 not to commercialize ‘Terminator Technology’ – plants that are genetically engineered to produce sterile seeds. Now seven years later Monsanto seems to have changed its mind. Itsays it may develop or use the so-called ‘suicide seeds’ after all. A newly revised pledge from Monsanto now suggests that it would use Terminator seeds in non-food crops and does not rule out other uses of Terminator in the future. Monsanto’s modified stance comes to light as the biotech and seed industry confront peasant and farmer movements, Indigenous peoples and their allies in an escalating battle at the United Nations over the future of Terminator that will come to a head next month..

Its the latest in a seven year struggle over what has been called ‘The neutron bomb of agriculture’ – genetically modified seeds that can’t be saved. In 2000 the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a de facto moratorium on sterile seed technologies (known in UN-speak as Genetic Use Restriction Technologies or GURTs). But at next month’s high-level meeting of the CBD in Curitiba, Brazil (20-31 March 2006) the biotechnology industry will intensify its push to undermine the six-year old de facto moratorium.

In response, over 300 organizations have this week declared their support for a global ban on Terminator Technology, asserting that sterile seeds threaten biodiversity and will destroy the livelihoods and cultures of the 1.4 billion people who depend on farm-saved seed.

“The world’s farmers and Indigenous peoples cannot trust Monsanto,” declares Alejandro Argumedo from Asociación ANDES – Potato Park in Cusco, Peru one of many indigenous groups backing teh Ban terminator call. “Monsanto’s broken promise is a deadly betrayal because Indigenous peoples and farmers depend on seed saving for food security and self-determination.”

Terminator technology was first developed by the United States Department of Agriculture and US seed company Delta & Pine Land to prevent farmers from saving and re-using harvested seed, forcing them to buy new seeds each season. Delta and Pine Land refer to Terminator as Technology Protection System (TPS). and are currently testing the crops in greenhouses. Delta and Pine Land’s Harry Collins has vowed that his company will commercialize terminator within the next few years

A few years ago terminator’s fortunes weren’t looking so good. In October 1999, in response to worldwide opposition, Monsanto publicly pledged not to commercialize Terminator seeds. Then-CEO, Robert Shapiro, wrote an open letter to the Rockefeller Foundation, stating, “I am writing to let you know that we are making a public commitment not to commercialize sterile seed technologies, such as the one dubbed ‘Terminator.’”

Now it turns out that Monsanto has quietly revised that commitment, pledging to keep Terminator only out of food crops. Their new wording opens the door to the use of Terminator in cotton, tobacco, pharmaceutical crops and grass with sterility genes. Referring to new versions of GURTs, Monsanto’s ‘pledge’ now says, “Monsanto does not rule out the potential development and use of one of these technologies in the future. The company will continue to study the risks and benefits of this technology on a case-by-case basis.”

“Monsanto’s revised pledge resonates closely with the actions of a few rich governments that have been promoting Terminator at the UN recently,” points out Chee Yoke Ling of Third World Network. “It looks like Monsanto and other corporations are behind the strategy to unleash Terminator at the upcoming meetings of the CBD”.

Indeed Monsanto’s new stance on Terminator is part of a wider industry attempt to undermine the de facto moratorium that was established six years ago. In the past year, government delegates from Canada, Australia and New Zealand , working hand in hand with the biotech industry, have used UN meetings to introduce new text that will be considered at next month’s CBD meeting in Brazil. This text recommends Terminator technologies be approached on a “case by case risk assessment” basis – echoing the language of Monsanto’s new ‘pledge.’ The intention behind the ‘case by case’ approach is to regulate Terminator just like any other genetically modified crop – looking only at health and environmental impacts. This would ignore the uniquely devastating societal impacts of genetic seed sterility.

“Terminator is a direct assault on farmers, Indigenous cultures and on the food sovereignty and well-being of all rural people, primarily the very poorest,” said Chukki Nanjundaswamy of India from La Via Campesina, an organization representing hundreds of millions of peasant farmers worldwide. “If Monsanto bullies the UN into allowing ‘case by case’ assessment of Terminator, it means farmers will be carried off the land coffin by coffin.”

“These companies have a clear and simple vision that nothing should be grown without a license from Monsanto and a few other masters of sterility and reproduction,” explains Benny Haerlin of Greenpeace International. “They pursue this strategy step by step or ‘case by case’ as they now call it. If governments at the CBD give in to Monsanto and erode the Terminator moratorium we will all have to pay the bill tomorrow and the collateral damage will be the integrity and fertility of nature.”

The Ban Terminator campaign this week announced the names of over 300 organizations worldwide that are demanding a ban on Terminator technology and encouraged others to join the alliance. The list of organizations is available at www.banterminator.org/endorsements These organizations are from every region of the world and include peasant farmer movements and farm organizations, Indigenous peoples organizations, civil society and environmental groups, unions, faith communities, international development organizations, women’s movements, consumer organizations and youth networks.

“We are particularly alarmed that Monsanto’s edited pledge no longer rejects commercialization of this dangerous technology.” said Lucy Sharratt who is co-ordinating the International Ban Terminator Campaign. “ We invite all civil society and social movements to join with us for the battle against Terminator next month in Brazil.”

If organisations wish to sign up to the Ban terminator campaign they can do so at www.banterminator.org or contact [email protected]

 

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