Subject: Bolivian Farmers Demand Researchers Drop Patent on Andean Food (fwd)

From: Victor Guest <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 23:08:46 WST

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FARMERS AND NGOS CALL ON UNITED NATIONS TO CONDEMN QUINOA PATENT AS THREAT
>>>TO FOOD SECURITY AND VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
>>>
>>>Bolivia's National Association of Quinoa Producers (ANAPQUI) is asking tw=
o
>>>professors at Colorado State University to abandon their controversial
>>>patent on one of the country's most important food crops - quinoa
>>>(Chenopodium quinoa) - a crop that feeds millions throughout the Andes,
>>>including many Aymara and Quechua Indigenous People.
>>>
>>>"Our intellectual integrity has been violated by this patent," said Luis
>>>Oscar Mamami, ANAPQUI's President. "Quinoa has been developed by Andean
>>>farmers for millenia, it was not 'invented' by researchers in North
>>>America," said Mamani. "We demand that the patent be dropped and that all
>>>countries of the world refuse to recognize its validity." Mr. Mamani will
>>>travel to New York City on 22 June to make his appeal on behalf of quinoa
>>>farmers at the United Nations where a Special Session of the General
>>>Assembly will meet from 23-27 June. ANAPQUI will also present the quinoa
>>>patent as a violation of Human Rights before the International Peoples'
>>>Tribunal on Human Rights and the Environment, 22-23 June in New York City=