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Subject: [TheEagle-L] THE ULTIMATE IN FOOD CONTROL: TO MAKE A WORLD
FAMINE--ST
Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 23:03:57 -800
From: "Charmaine Ferreira - Apocalypse Project" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 21:59:57 -0800
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From: "A.C."
Subject: THE ULTIMATE IN FOOD CONTROL: TO MAKE A WORLD
FAMINE--STERILE
SEED DEVISED BY SATANIC MINDS--how we can counteract
Let us contribute to SSE's legacy, by all of us who care about
nourishment
for ourselves, our families, our nation, and the world, to add our
numbers
to their gallant, "self pollinating," seed saving effort. ac
This from the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE): Seed savers Exchange is a
nonprofit, tax-exempt organization that is saving "heirloom"
(handed-down)
garden seeds from extinction. SSE's 8,000 members grow and distribute
heirloom varieties of vegetables, fruits, grains, flowers and herbs.
SSE's
main focus is on heirloom varieties that gardeners and farmers brought
to
North America when their families immigrated, and traditional varieties
grown by Native Americans, Mennonites and Amish. Since SSE was founded
in
1975, our members have distributed an estimated 750.000 samples of rare
and
endangered seeds not available through catalogs and often on the verge
of
extinction. SSE has always been the leader of the heirloom seed
movement,
and the diligent efforts of our members are making rare heirloom
varieties
available to gardeners everywhere.
SSE's phone number and address to receive their catalogue:
(319)-382-5990
SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE
3076 North Winn Road
Decorah, IA 52101
---------------------------------------------------------
http://www.arkinstitute.com
Visit The Ark Institute's web site @ http://www.arkinstitute.com for
archived Food and Grain Supply Updates. To be placed on Geri Guidetti,s
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subject box to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Seed Terminator & Mega-Merger Threaten Food & Freedom
> Food Supply Update - June 5, 1998
> By Geri Guidetti www.arkinstitute.com
> c. 1998 All Rights Reserved
>
> There have been times in human history when the line between
>genius
and insanity was so fine that it was barely
perceptible. In the world of biotechnology and food,
that
> line has just been obliterated. Announcements made over
> the past 90 days suggest that an ingenius scientific
> achievement and subsequent, related business developments
> threaten to terminate the natural, God-given right and
> ability of people everywhere to freely grow food to feed
> themselves and others. Never before has man created such
> an insidiously dangerous, far-reaching and potentially
> "perfect" plan to control the livelihoods, food supply
> and even survival of all humans on the planet.
> Overstatement? Judge for yourself.
>
> On March 3, 1998, the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and
> the Delta and Pine Land Company, a Mississippi firm and
> the largest cotton seed company in the world, announced
> that they had jointly developed and received a patent (US
> patent number 5,723,765) on a new, agricultural
> biotechnology. Benignly titled, "Control of Plant Gene
> Expression", the new patent will permit its owners and
> licensees to create sterile seed by cleverly and
> selectively programming a plant,s DNA to kill its own
> embryos. The patent applies to plants and seeds of all
> species. The result? If saved at harvest for future
> crops, the seed produced by these plants will not grow.
> Pea pods, tomatoes, peppers, heads of wheat and ears of
> corn will essentially become seed morgues. In one broad,
> brazen stroke of his hand, man will have irretrievably
> broken the plant - to - seed - to - plant - to - seed -
> cycle, THE cycle that supports most life on the planet.
> No seed, no food..unless you buy more seed. This is
> obviously good for seed companies. As it turns out, it
is also good for the US Department of Agriculture.
>
> In a recent interview with RAFI, the Canada-based Rural
> Advancement Foundation International, US Department of
> Agriculture (USDA) spokesman, Willard Phelps, explained
> that the USDA wants this technology to be "widely
> licensed and made expeditiously available to many seed
> companies." The goal, he said, is "to increase the value
> of proprietary seed owned by US seed companies and to
> open up new markets in Second and Third World countries."
> The USDA and Delta & Pine Land Co. have applied for
> patents on the terminator technology in at least 78
> countries!
>
> Once the technology is commercialized, the USDA will earn
> royalties of about 5% of net sales. "I think it will be
> profitable for USDA," Phelps said. (Royalties? Profits?
> For a Department of the US Federal Government? What's
> wrong with this picture?)
>
> The Terminator Technology was created to prevent farmers from
> saving non-hybrid, open-pollinated or genetically altered
> seed sold by seed companies. Open-pollinated varieties of
> crops like wheat and rice staples for most of the world's
> population are typical examples. The stated logic for
> Terminator Technology is simple, really. A seed company
> invests money to develop and produce new varieties of
> seed. It hopes to sell a lot of that seed to recoup
> monies spent on crop research and seed development, and
> then to realize a profit on their investment. Fair
> enough, it would seem, but there are BIG concerns around
> the world about how much profit, how much control many of
> these multinational seed companies actually seek. Many of
> their proprietary seeds are no more than genetically
> altered versions of older, reliable, conventionally bred
> strains that have been in the public domain for many,
> many years. Change a gene to give a seed resistance to
> some new strain of disease, the logic goes, and the seed
> no longer belongs to the people to grow and save as they
> like, but to the seed company. In the past several years
> the world community has been outraged as some
> multinational seed companies have brazenly tried to claim
> ownership of whole species of food plants based on the
> logic that they had altered a gene in a member of that
> species and, hence, now owned its whole genome!
>
> In a world of burgeoning population growth and, hence, demand for
> food, giant, multi-national seed companies hope to sell a
> lot of proprietary, genetically engineered seed. Food is
> a BIG business that will only get bigger, and they want
> farmers around the world to need to come back to them,
> year after year, to buy the seed and, in some cases, even
> the chemicals, to grow it. Plant patents, gene licensing
> agreements, intellectual property laws, investigations
> and lawsuits brought against farm families for infringing
> on a seed company's monopoly on seed varieties are some
> of the means now used to protect their interests.
>
>[continued...]
> 2/4
The new Terminator Technology could render even these modern,
legal measures of control obsolete, as it is potentially
so powerful, so effective and so flawless in its
applicability that its corporate owners and licensees
will literally have complete biological control over the
food crops in which it is applied. Seed companies have
been working hard to prevent farmers around the world
from saving their own seed from plants originally grown
with seed purchased from these companies. They are also
trying to find ways to encourage farmers around the
world"in the U.S., Europe and especially the huge market
represented by farmers in South America, Mexico and
Asia,
to switch to genetically engineered, proprietary seed
instead of relying on the eons-old practice of saving
their own locally produced and conventionally bred seed.
If they can produce and offer their "improved" seed
cheaply enough to convince even poorer, Second and Third
World farmers to switch, they will have captured much of
the global market. The Terminator will ensure that this
market"these farmers and the communities and countries
they feed will be completely dependent on the company in
order to continue to eat.
There is another potential dark side to the Terminator.
Molecular
biologists reviewing the technology are divided on
whether or not there is a risk of the Terminator
function
escaping the genome of the crops into which it has been
intentionally incorporated and moving into surrounding
open-pollinated crops or wild, related plants in fields
nearby. The means of this "infection" would be via
pollen
from Terminator-altered plants. Given Nature's
incredible
adaptability, and the fact that the technology has never
been tested on a large scale, the possibility that the
Terminator may spread to surrounding food crops or to
the
natural environment MUST be taken seriously. The gradual
spread of sterility in seeding plants would result in a
global catastrophe that could eventually wipe out higher
life forms, including humans, from the planet.
According to USDA researchers, they have spent about $190,000
over four years working on the joint project. (Yes, you
and I supported this research.) For its share, the Delta
& Pine Land Company has reportedly devoted $275,000 of
in-house expenses, plus an additional $255,000.
Combined,
these dollars are a mere drop in the bucket compared to
the potential profitability of the technology to its
owners. According to USDA's Willard Phelps, the Delta &
Pine Land Co. retains the option to exclusively license
the jointly-developed technology. In its March 3rd press
release, the company claimed that the new technology has
"the prospect of opening significant worldwide seed
markets to the sale of transgenic technology for crops
in
which seed currently is saved and used in subsequent
plantings." In a recent communique, RAFI states: "If the
Terminator Technology is widely utilized, it will give
the multinational seed and agrochemical industry an
unprecedented and extremely dangerous capacity to
control
the world's food supply." That fear may be realized much
sooner than anyone could have imagined.
At the time of the March 3 announcement of the US
government-supported technology, it was common knowledge
that multinational seed and pesticides giant, Monsanto,
was a minor (8%) shareholder in the Delta & Pine Land
Co.
The two jointly have a cotton seed venture in China. On
May 11th, a mere nine weeks after the announcement of
the
Terminator Technology, Monsanto bought the Delta & Pine
Land Co. and, with it, the complete control of the
Terminator Technology. For an even bigger picture of the
implications of this acquisition, here,s a summary of
some published information on Monsanto's current
agricultural holdings and activities:
* The purchase of Delta & Pine now gives Monsanto an
overwhelming
85% share of the US cotton seed market and a dominant
global position in this crop. * On May 11th, Monsanto
also announced the take-over of Dekalb, the second
largest maize (corn) company in the US. * In January of
1997, Monsanto acquired Holden,s Foundation Seeds. A
company spokesman said at the time that its goal was to
get its bioengineered seed on at least half of the then
40 million acres that Monsanto had access to via its
acquisitions. It is estimated that 25-35% of US corn
acreage is planted with Holden,s products. The Holden
and
Dekalb acquisitions make Monsanto the dominant player in
the corn market. * In November, Monsanto acquired
Brazilian seed company, Sementes Agroceres. This
acquisition gave Monsanto 30% of the Brazilian corn seed
business. Brazilian farmers who have been breeding and
saving their own seed for centuries are considered
[continued...]
3/4
primary targets for terminator and apomictic (below)
corn
seed products. * On January 20th, the USDA won another
patent no. 5,710,367 covering "apomictic maize". This
corn trait speeds hybrid seed production by allowing the
plant to produce hybrid clones, lowering the price of
hybrid seed. Third World farmers unable to afford more
expensive hybrid seed could potentially buy these less
expensive clones. Unlike other hybrids, apomictic corn
can be regrown but its genetic uniformity (remember,
clones) would make it more likely to lose its disease
resistance more frequently, forcing farmers to buy seed
more often. There are fears that Monsanto will obtain
these license rights from the USDA. Monsanto,s recent
corn company acquisitions and, now, near monopoly in
corn, make this a critical concern. * A Washington
connection, according to RAFI: "In the past two years, a
number of high-ranking White House and USDA officials
have left Washngton for the allure of Monsanto,s
headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri."
* "In October 1997, Monsanto and Millenium Pharmaceuticals
(another US-based genomics company) announced a 5 year
collaborative agreement worth over US $118 million,
including the creation of a new Monsanto subsidiary with
about 100 scientists to work exclusively with Millenium
to use genomic technologies. The exclusive agreement is
not limited to a single crop or geographic location it
covers all crop plants in all countries. Monsanto
considers the new subsidiary an integral part of its
life
sciences strategy and hopes to gain a competitive edge
in
the search for patentable and likely "Terminator-able
crop genes." Monsanto has pioneered enforcement
strategies for protection of its plant patents. Much of
this pioneering has been centered on its genetically
altered soybeans which have the ability to withstand
spraying with the company's leading herbicide, Roundup.
(Weeds and other native plants die, beans live.) In 1996
the company set a new precedent requiring farmers buying
its genetically engineered "Roundup Ready Soybeans" to
sign and adhere to the terms of its "1996 Roundup Ready
Gene Agreement." Terms: The farmer must pay a $5 per bag
"technology fee"; the farmer must give Monsanto the
right
to inspect, monitor and test his/her fields for up to 3
years; the farmer must use only Monsanto,s brand of the
glyphosate herbicide it calls Roundup; the farmer must
give up his/her right to save and replant the patented
seed; the farmer must agree not to sell or otherwise
supply the seed to "any other person or entity." The
farmer must also agree, in writing, to pay Monsanto
"...100 times the then applicable fee for the Roundup
Ready gene, times the number of units of transferred
seed, plus reasonable attorney's fees and expenses..."
should he violate any portion of the agreement. The
farmers' outcry against the stringent inspection and
monitoring of their private property caused Monsanto to
modify that part of the agreement in 1997. The company
has used a similar licensing agreement for its
genetically engineered cotton and, according to a
spokeswoman, plans to introduce licensing agreements
with
all genetically engineered seeds Monsanto brings to
market. These will include Roundup Ready canola (canola
oil), corn, sugarbeets, etc. (Keep in mind that now
Monsanto has Terminator Technology to license, as well.
It is applicable to all food crops according to its
primary inventor.)
Four days ago, the scope of the potential impact of the
Terminator Technology on global agriculture broadened
explosively with the announcement that American Home
Products Corporation (AHP) had agreed to buy Monsanto
Co.
for $33.9 billion in stock. "AHP," according to its
press
release, "is one of the world's largest research-based
pharmaceutical and health care products companies....It
is also a global leader in vaccines, biotechnology,
agricultural products and animal health care." Reuters
reports that the acquisition will create "a powerful
pharmaceutical company with a massive presence in the
growing market for genetically engieered agricultural
products."
[continued...]
4/4
Actually, AHP is a family of companies including American
Cyanamid, Cyamid Agricultural Products Group, Wyeth
Ayerst, and others. It is the third largest in the US in
herbicides, insecticides and fungicides but, with its
acquisition of Monsanto, it is now estimated that the
combined companies will become the largest
agrochemical/life industries company in the world,
beating Swiss global giant, Novartis. It does not take a
giant mental leap to see the massive potential for the
application and marketing of Monsanto's Roundup Ready
seed and licensing agreements and the Terminator
Technology to an increasing number of companies and food
crops. If the Terminator technology is not globally
banned, its eventual incorporation into all genetically
engineered and open-pollinated, non-hybrid food crops is
predictable.
As most of you are aware, I have often fretted in these pages
about the vulnerabilities of our increasingly
centralized, computer-based, bottom-line driven, large
corporation-dominated food production, processing and
distribution system. Extreme weather patterns, toxic
waste-contaminated fertilizers, epidemic bacterial
contamination of food and the year-2000 crash of
computers responsible for keeping the whole, complex
system running have been big concerns. I have warned you
of the planned disappearance of non-hybrid,
open-pollinated seeds that let you retain the means of
growing your own food if you want or need to; seeds that
ensure protective biodiversity; seeds that may provide
personal food security in insecure times. Now the
Terminator threatens even these.
Make no mistake about it widespread global adoption of the newly
patented Terminator Technology will ensure absolute
dependence of farmers, and the people they feed, on
multinational corporations for their seed and food.
Dependence does not foster freedom. On the contrary,
dependence fosters a loss of freedom. Dependence does
not
increase personal power, it diminishes it. When you are
dependent, you relinquish control. History is full of
examples of peoples and cultures who lost fundamental
freedoms who were controlled by their need for food.
This
shouldn't happen to Second and Third World farmers. It
shouldn't happen in any of the 78 countries in which the
patent has been applied for. It shouldn't happen here.
The Terminator Technology is brilliant science and arguably
"good
business", but it has crossed the line the tenuous line
between genius and insanity. It is a dangerous, bad idea
that should be banned. Period..........Geri Guidetti,
The
Ark Institute
Visit The Ark Institute's web site @ http://www.arkinstitute.com
for archived Food and Grain Supply Updates. To be placed
on Geri Guidetti,s free Food Supply Update email list,
send an email with "list" in the subject box to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To receive a free email catalog, write "catalog" in the subject
box. Mailing address: The Ark Institute, PO Box 142,
Oxford, Ohio 45064
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