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[SANET-MG] SOS save our seeds
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SaveOurSeeds.phpISIS Press Release 01/08/05
SOS: Save Our Seeds
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho warns of new dangers posed by genetic engineering to the
world's gene banks, already in jeopardy from years of under-funding, and
stresses the importance of in situ conservation and seed saving in local
communities for sustainable food systems and food security
Sources for this report are available in the ISIS members site. Full
details here
World genebanks and food security in jeopardy
Deteriorating conditions in the world's crop gene banks pose “a major
threat to US agriculture,” says a new study published by the University
of California Genetic Resources Conservation Program [1]. The report,
Securing the Future of U.S. Agriculture: The Need to Conserve
Collections of Crop Diversity Worldwide , notes that nearly every major
crop in the United States - including soybeans, corn, wheat, rice,
potatoes, oranges and apples - is battling a plethora of new or
re-merging pests to which there is little or no resistance. Failure to
adequately maintain crop genebank collections “could constrain
agriculture's ability to avert billions of dollars in crop damage.”
These genebanks provide the diversity needed to enable the crops “to
stay one step ahead of pests”, and also to improve quality, nutritional
value, and yield. But lack of funding has left many of the collections
in a state of decay.
Just prior to the publication of the report, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Norman Borlaug was warning the world of a new rust epidemic from East
Africa, that, if it gets loose in Asia, North America, South America and
Australia, would infect half of all our grain varieties, and the stage
would be set for a major disaster. This calls for ongoing research. “But
when you haven't had a major epidemic in 52 years, complacency becomes a
problem.” Borlaug said.
Underlying the almost $200 billion value of US agriculture's production
at the farm level is a little known resource – the genebanks around the
world. The report, released at a congressional briefing in Washington 28
February 2005, noted that the collections held in gene banks “represent
the historic and current diversity of agriculture, without which farming
in the U.S. and around the world would stagnate and flounder.”
Qualset and Henry L. Shands, director of the USDA/Agricultural Research
Service's National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, were
co-authors of the report.
At the World Food Day symposium on 19 October 2004, United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf
delivered a similar message on the importance of genebanks [2]. He said
that global efforts to conserve plants and animals in genebanks,
botanical gardens and zoos are vital to maintaining global biodiversity
and promoting food security worldwide. In fact, the theme of the 24 th
annual World Food Day was “Biodiversity for Food Security”.
Worldwide, there are nearly 5.4 million crop samples in 1 470 gene banks
[3]. These are important repositories for conserving seeds and
germplasm, as agricultural biodiversity has been severely eroded under
industrial monoculture practised over the latter half of the last
century [2] (see Box 1). Lack of biodiversity leaves major crops
vulnerable to disease, causing famines and starvation. The Irish Potato
famine in the 1830s was one example, when the Phytophthora potato blight
destroyed the entire crop, as the farmers grew only one variety, and
there was no genetic diversity in seed banks or elsewhere to fall back
on. Gene banks also play a vital role in maximizing the use of wild and
cultivated varieties in crop improvement through selective breeding.
Box 1
Loss of agricultural biodiversity from industrial monoculture
FAO estimates that about 75 percent of the genetic diversity of
agricultural crops had been lost during the last century. Farmers in the
United States grew more than 7 000 varieties of apples in the 1800s; by
the end of the 1900s, all but 300 were extinct. In 1949, farmers in
China grew 10 000 varieties of wheat; by the 1970s, they grew just 1000.
Similar losses of maize varieties have occurred in Mexico and of rice
varieties in India. Of 6 500 animal breeds known today, almost one third
are threatened or already extinct.
Genebanks have been in major trouble for some years; there simply is not
enough money for gene banks to fulfil even their basic conservation
role, let alone their other role of maximising the use of wild and
domesticated varieties for crop breeding and improvement.
When dried and kept cold, some seeds will last for 30 years or longer.
Others have to be grown out regularly and harvested to keep seeds fresh
and alive. Tubers, roots and cuttings for plants can be kept in test
tubes, usually as tissue culture, and periodically regenerated. All
these cannot be done without money. Without proper care, existing seed
stock will eventually lose its viability.
Prof. Jeff Waage of Imperial College's department of agricultural
sciences in London, UK, had earlier reported to the United Nations World
Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2002 [3], that although the
number of plant samples held in crop diversity collections has increased
by 65 percent, genebank budgets have been cut back in 25 percent of the
countries and remained the same in another 35 percent.
Waage's report said that one in 12 of the world's 250 000 species of
flowering plants are likely to disappear before 2025. A chief culprit is
modern agriculture, particularly when forests are cleared to create
farmland. “Among the losses are the wild relatives of domesticated
plants with as yet untapped potential,” said the report. These include
wheat, soya beans, tomatoes, coffee and grapes
To add to the trouble, war in developing countries had destroyed some
vital centres, other have their electricity cut off, so rare seeds are
not kept in cool conditions required. Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and
Romania have all lost their genebanks. Albania, Fiji and Nigeria have
lost part of their collections.
In response to the crisis in gene banks, the Global Crop Diversity Trust
was launched at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002
(Box 2).
Box 2
Global Crop Diversity Trust
The Global Crop Diversity Trust was set up in 2002 at the World Summit
for Sustainable Development as a type 2 (public-private partnership)
involving the FAO and the 15 “Future Harvest Centres” of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) [4,
5]. It hopes to raise US$260 million required to protect the world's
most important crop species; so far, only $56 million has been
committed. Among the first grants are to the N.I. Vavilov Research
Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) based in St. Petersburg, established
and named after the famous Russian plant geneticist Nicolai Vavilov,
which now holds around 95 000 accessions of grain crops, over 43 000
legumes and 50 000 vegetables. Nikolai Vavilov was one of the first and
most prolific collectors of plant seeds; he made more than 100
collecting missions around the world between 1915 and 1930, and was
responsible for the idea of “centres of origin” for regions with a high
diversity of species.
Genetic engineering the new threat
A new threat to genebanks has surfaced in the events surrounding the
forced merger in 2002 of Italy's gene bank in Bari – among the world's
ten largest – with much smaller centres involved in genetic modification
of crop plants (“Italy's gene bank at risk”, this series).
Although by far the biggest institution in the merger, its director
since 1982, Prof. Pietro Perrino, was sidelined in the competition for
the directorship of the merged institute, which went instead, to a
professor in Naples who has yet to move to Bari. Perrino was downgraded
to “manager” of Bari's germplasm collection of 84 000 accessions. But
right from the first, it was obvious that the new director has little or
no interest in preserving the collection. Things came to a head when the
cooling system broke down and the director refused to have it repaired.
In desperation, Perrino resorted to the law court to have the collection
placed under his custody in order to have the cooling system repaired.
But damages to the collection may have already occurred.
Perrino and his supporters are convinced that the new director and the
“pro-GM lobby” are not at all interested in conserving the collection,
but are using it as a pretext for getting research funding for genetic
modification. More than that, Perrino and his supporters suspect that
the pro-GM lobby and the GM giants really would like to see the
collection destroyed.
This sounds far-fetched until one gets inside the genetic engineer's
mindset. To a genetic engineer, DNA is all. Once a genome sequence is
known and deposited in a database, and the DNA of the plant genome
deposited in a DNA biobank, then the seed or plant is really of little
or no interest. After all, DNA sequences of any gene can easily be
synthesized in the laboratory and used to transform existing crop plants
to make any desired GM variety, be it herbicide tolerance, insect
resistance, salt or drought tolerance, improved nutritional properties,
increase in yield, etc., at least in theory. That is precisely the same
mentality that motivates “gene-hunting” of indigenous tribes threatened
with extinction, so as to preserve their DNA before they become extinct,
“for the good of humanity”.
Unfortunately, we can no more resurrect a plant from its DNA than
reconstruct an extinct indigenous tribe with its distinctive language,
knowledge and culture that constitute an entire way of life.
This exclusive emphasis on DNA is misplaced even for genetic engineers,
especially those using marker-assisted selective breeding on existing
lines to enable them to identify useful traits [6]. The genetic markers
can be identified through screening the DNA; but the plants themselves
will still be needed for cross-breeding.
An additional disincentive for proponents of GM to preserve germplasm in
seed banks is that they are considered the natural heritage of the
earth, if not of the human species, and cannot be patented for
commercial exploitation if there is no genetic modification or gene
isolation involved (see the International Treaty on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture, Box 3). So, as far as agribusiness
is concerned, they are of no commercial value, or indeed of negative
commercial value, as seed or germplasm collection allows farmers to do
their own selective breeding for improving crops and livestock, instead
of having to purchase patented seeds from the companies and pay
royalties. That would reverse the corporate serfdom being imposed on
farmers all over the world (see SiS 26), and that's precisely the reason
why gene banks are important, particularly if farmers can get ready
access to their collections (see below).
Box 3
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
This treaty is the outcome of the International Undertaking (IU) on
Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture adopted by the FAO
conference in 1983. Starting in 1996, the IU was revised through
negotiations to make it compatible with the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD), and renamed the International Treaty (IT). Negotiations
were finalized in November 2001, and the IT was hailed by FAO
Director-General Jacques Diouf [2] as “a triumph for the indigenous
farmers, herders, forest dwellers and fishing communities of the world.”
It establishes a multilateral system of access and benefit sharing to
ensure that plant genetic resources of the greatest importance to food
security are readily available for use now and in the future, and that
any benefits are shared with the countries in which they originated. It
also establishes a mechanism to ensure that researchers worldwide have
access to those resources. Critics note however, that it does not go far
enough in protecting our common heritage from commercial exploitation
and patenting (“Science for the poor, or procurer for the rich?” SiS
15). The United States is a signatory to the treaty, which entered into
force in June 2004.
In situ conservation against corporate serfdom
Apart from the ex situ conservation, in situ conservation - maintaining
biodiversity on farms and in nature – is equally important, if not more
so, for counteracting corporate serfdom.
Jacque Diouf himself has stressed the importance of in situ conservation
[2]. “The responsibility for conserving agrobiodiversity on farms in a
great part of the world usually belongs to women farmers who
traditionally harvest and conserve crop seeds from season to season.”
Said Diouf. “This local agrodiversity is particularly important for the
resilience of farming systems and communities in emergencies or
humanitarian crises, such as those that affected more than 45 million
people last year.” He pointed out that most of the earth's genetic
diversity is found in the poor countries in the developing world; and
that “it is imperative that those most responsible for its development
and its preservation - the indigenous people who maintain the farms, the
herds, the forests and the fishing areas - are both respected and
rewarded for their efforts.”
In situ conservation and seed saving by local communities themselves is
the key to recovering and safeguarding local agricultural biodiversity
for genuinely sustainable food systems that involves local production
and consumption, and restores self-sufficiency and autonomy to farmers
and the local communities.
“There used to be many local variety seeds not only for food crops such
as rice and corn, but also for beans/legumes and fruit trees.” Says Hira
Jhamtani of Konphalindo, Indonesia, a public interest organisation
involved in promoting sustainable agriculture. “The problem is that the
knowledge is dying with the old farmers, and the younger generation has
no comprehensive knowledge on seed conservation, nor do they seem to be
interested. This is where scientists can play a role in documenting
local seed varieties and reviving seed breeding among the younger
generations based and rooted in local knowledge. The local know-how
still exists in many places in Indonesia (and also the Philippines), the
question is how to regenerate the biodiverse agricultural-base and
revitalise this knowledge through community based activities.”
Neth Dano, associate of Third World Network in the Philippines, who has
worked with local communities to develop sustainable agriculture for
many years, is less than happy about a blanket call to increase funding
for genebanks. “The genebank/ ex situ strategy should not be seen as a
stand-alone genetic conservation strategy but should complement the
in-situ /on-farm strategies of communities, institutions and civil
society.” Says Dano, “This would require genebank scientists working
closely with farmers and indigenous peoples in seeds conservation on
farm. Increase funding for genebanks should be tied to increased
funding for in-situ /on-farm conservation and utilization efforts.”
This will ensure that the genebanks will not just conserve genetic
resources for corporate agriculture, but first and foremost for world
food security and the livelihood of those who have nurtured and are
dependent on these genetic resources.
“We also have to take note that there are many cases when the ex situ
conservation is not relevant at all, as in the case of the Least
Developed Countries which cannot even afford to pay for electricity to
keep the genebanks running after these have been built through grants or
even loans that the future generation will have to pay.” Dano adds.
She also points out that even if most or all of the collections in the
CGIAR genebanks are not patented, as they are “common heritage of
mankind”, they remain inaccessible to farmers especially if traditional
breeds have already been lost. Genebanks should make every effort to
ensure that their collections are accessible to the farmers and
indigenous peoples who need them, as most of the materials were
collected by scientists from farming and indigenous communities in the
first place. There must be concrete mechanisms to inform farmers and to
facilitate farmers' access to these materials.
Seed-saving against corporate serfdom
Seed saving is an important activity that does not have to wait for
massive funding, and many local communities have already started to do
just that, to make sure they conserve what they still have, and not to
depend on genebanks.
For example, the Henry Doubleday Research Association in the UK with 30
000 members are a major seed saver for organic gardening and farming,
although it is not a gene bank. Its Heritage Seed Library conserves and
makes available to members European vegetable varieties that are not
widely available. Currently, 700 accessions of open-pollinated varieties
are held, of which about 200 are in its Seed Catalogue sent free to
members ( http://www.hdra.org.uk/hsl/index.htm ).
Navdanya (“Nine seeds”) started by Dr. Vandana Shiva of the Research
Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in India is active not
only in seed saving but also in revitalising indigenous knowledge and
culture, in creating awareness on the hazards of genetic engineering,
and in defending people's knowledge from biopiracy and people's food
rights in the face of globalisation. It has its own seed bank and
organic farm over an area of 20 acres in Uttranchal, north India (
http://www.navdanya.org/ ).
In Ireland, Anita Hayes founded the Irish Seed Savers Association (ISSA)
in 1991 in her own home and garden. But with a core of willing helpers
and seed donations, and financial aid from government bodies and many
generous funders, the ISSA took off. It now has a large collection of
Irish fruits, cereals and vegetables ( http://www.irishseedsavers.ie/ ).
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