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Re: Moratorium Called on Genetically Modified Foods



I think I would like quote from Speech given by Dr.Vandana Shiva at the
Opening of the First Organic
World Exhibition, 10. August, 1996

 "So, farmers rights become absolutely essential foundations for organic
agriculture, and that means: any monopoly system
that undermines those rights becomes a declared war against the shift to
organic agriculture. 

The minister talked about eco-labelling and we have seen, again, in the last
year the issue of the mad cow disease, the
issue of the herbicide-resistant rape-seed that Monsanto wanted to push
without labelling in Denmark and which, I feel very
happy that Denmark has resisted so far.

These are issues in which very fondamental right to information is being
denied to consumers. What method has been
used, what has gone into the food, how the seed has been processed, what
technology was used. And I think the
deadlock that is being created in the world-trade organization around that
there is an agreement that the north and the
south could reach, which says,let us begin with food, on product and process
methods, I am sure that the south will be
more than willing to come to that. because it is the dumping by non
ecological production methods that is wiping out
agricultures . And they will be only too happy to have costs of production
internalised into systems. And if by the time of
the ministerial ......in december a few countries of the north like Denmark,
Sweden and Norway could come to agreement
that we will push for process and production methods being internalized, but
we will do it for agriculture, we will do it for
genetic engineering, we will do it for food labelling, I think we could
actually have major brake through so that instead of
trade issue, pushing and subsidising anti organic agriculture it starts to
support organic agriculture. I will give you a very
simple example, five years ago, I have done a conference about the stage of
the world in terms of the food system. And
we have done a paper on the fact that Pepsico, you know the big company
Pepsico, is going to machoes in Punjab to
make ketcup to send to all its pizza huts, it was paying the farmers half a
rupi for a kilo, twenty rupis make a dollar and you
can work out which fraction of a dollar that is. Just yesterday the
newspapers announced that the exporters of vegetables
>from  India would be getting subsidies to rupis ten a kilo, that is twenty
times more than the farmer gets after laboring the
entire year. And from what I see, a lot of that money is coming from aid.
Which is saying not aid, lets promote trade, but
trade is then promoting subsidies, for the wrong kind of agriculture, and I
really think that we need a serious ecological
audit on that.

So what we have to subject all agriculture to is the two tests of ecology
and human rights. Ecology basically to insure that
ecological processes have been the basis of food production, and human
rights spanning from the fundamental right to
food of all, from the rights of farmers to be engaged in farming, the right
of farmers to have seed, the right of consumers to
have knowledge about what they are eating, that whole bundle of human rights
that is concerning food and agriculture. And
agriculture that fails those tests deserves to disappear.

I feel very happy to be with you, the movements that are showing the way in
which we could be going from here into the
next millenium. Thank You"