GM Crops and Poverty
SNA | 25.06.2003 10:46 | Bio-technology | Ecology | Social Struggles | London | World
The widespread adoption of GM crops seems likely to exacerbate the underlying causes of food insecurity, leading to more hungry people, not fewer. To have a lasting impact on poverty, ActionAid believes policy makers must address the real constraints facing poor communities - lack of access to land, credit, resources and markets instead of focusing on risky technologies that have no track record in addressing hunger.
Conclusion and recommendations:
The widespread adoption of GM crops seems likely to exacerbate the underlying causes of food insecurity, leading to more hungry people, not fewer. To have a lasting impact on poverty, ActionAid believes policy makers must address the real constraints facing poor communities - lack of access to land, credit, resources and markets instead of focusing on risky technologies that have no track record in addressing hunger.
Poverty
" Donors and governments should address the wider socio-economic causes of food insecurity land, credit, rural training and infrastructure before putting resources into GM crops.
GM crops
" They should introduce a moratorium on the further commercialisation of GM crops until more research has been carried out into the socio-economic, agronomic, environmental and biodiversity impacts of GM crops, particularly in developing countries.
" Poorer farmers and communities should be enabled to participate more in national GM debates and policymaking.
Intellectual property
" Genetic resources for food and agriculture should be exempt from intellectual property requirements.
" Farmers rights to save and exchange seeds should be recognised under the intellectual property rules of the WTO and should be protected in developing country intellectual property rights legislation.
Corporate concentration
" Governments should introduce competition rules to prevent private sector monopolies and effective institutions to enforce them.
Biosafety
" The potential impact of GM crops on food security, poor farmers and biodiversity should guide the development and implementation of national biosafety frameworks.
Public sector research
" Funding for public sector agricultural research should be increased and should specialise in support for sustainable, farmer-led agriculture.
Read a summary or the full report in PDF format from:
http://www.actionaid.org/resources/pdfs/gatg.pdf
The widespread adoption of GM crops seems likely to exacerbate the underlying causes of food insecurity, leading to more hungry people, not fewer. To have a lasting impact on poverty, ActionAid believes policy makers must address the real constraints facing poor communities - lack of access to land, credit, resources and markets instead of focusing on risky technologies that have no track record in addressing hunger.
Poverty
" Donors and governments should address the wider socio-economic causes of food insecurity land, credit, rural training and infrastructure before putting resources into GM crops.
GM crops
" They should introduce a moratorium on the further commercialisation of GM crops until more research has been carried out into the socio-economic, agronomic, environmental and biodiversity impacts of GM crops, particularly in developing countries.
" Poorer farmers and communities should be enabled to participate more in national GM debates and policymaking.
Intellectual property
" Genetic resources for food and agriculture should be exempt from intellectual property requirements.
" Farmers rights to save and exchange seeds should be recognised under the intellectual property rules of the WTO and should be protected in developing country intellectual property rights legislation.
Corporate concentration
" Governments should introduce competition rules to prevent private sector monopolies and effective institutions to enforce them.
Biosafety
" The potential impact of GM crops on food security, poor farmers and biodiversity should guide the development and implementation of national biosafety frameworks.
Public sector research
" Funding for public sector agricultural research should be increased and should specialise in support for sustainable, farmer-led agriculture.
Read a summary or the full report in PDF format from:
http://www.actionaid.org/resources/pdfs/gatg.pdf
SNA
Homepage:
http://www.actionaid.org/resources/pdfs/gatg.pdf
Comments
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More and worse
25.06.2003 21:35
Artificial foodstuffs… intensively farmed, irradiated, refined, processed and stripped of all nutrients, with added hormones, chemicals, e-coli and botulism is the accepted staple diet, but the vitamin or mineral supplements which could replace what nature has lost, is banned.
Water, the elixir of life, is poisoned with arsenic and fluoride, while the air we breathe is contaminated by aluminium, barium and miniscule polymer fibres… severe irritants to the respiratory system, but if you cough in public, you are a bio-terrorist.
ELF and microwaves bombard our bio-rhythms, altering our genetic make-up and brain frequency. Mass manipulation of the mind from the masts is making mankind into robotic morons and inducing cancerous conditions.
New, contagious doctor-engineered viruses are released or administered through debilitating immunisation programmes. Dangerous and addictive GM ‘recreational drugs’ are made widely available while healing, herbal and homeopathic medicine is restricted and regulated. More toxic vaccines are demanded.
H.A.A.R.P intervention in the seasonal cycles deprives farmlands of rain or creates a deluge, by re-directing the jet-stream, to decimate crops and destroy communities in mud-slides. Bogus scientists blame ‘global warming’ and penalise the poor, to protect the planet.
A dependency on drought-resistant GM seeds will be introduced, with added infertility genes or disease, to decrease reproduction. The pollen will cross-species into the wild, with catastrophic repercussions for the eco-system. As more flora and fauna is endangered, vast swathes of land will be reclaimed as wilderness for its protection, while the former human inhabitants, cleared by forest-fires, will be corralled into controlled zones; compact cities, under constant and continuous, sinister surveillance of behavioural patterns.
ZPT, unlimited free energy which could provide for a high-tech Universal Utopian society without want and facilitate interstellar space-travel, is denied, but channelled into ‘death-rays’ and doomsday weaponry. Do you think someone is trying to kill us?
dh