Activitists: Terminate the Terminator

Inter Press reports:

CURITIBA, Brazil - On Tuesday morning, as delegates arrived at the conference venue, they faced more than 100 peasant and indigenous rights activists at the main gates staging a demonstration in support of a complete ban on the sale and use of Terminator seeds, officially known as Genetic Use Restriction Technology.

"These seeds are killed seeds," the crowd shouted as they watched delegates arrive in cars and buses.

"Terminate the Terminator", the activists chanted in unison, while demanding tough laws against field testing and sale of so-called "Terminator" technology, which refers to plants that have had their genes altered so that they render sterile seeds at harvest. Because of this trait, some activists call Terminator products "suicide seeds".

The industry claims that it will enhance biodiversity and its high cost is more than compensated for by improved crop yield and quality. But opponents argue that Terminator would not only undermine traditional knowledge and innovation, but would add to the economic burden of poor peasants who depend on saved seeds.

The biotech industry's interest in promoting Terminator is not hard to understand because each year the global commercial seed market brings in about 23 billion dollars in revenue, according to independent trade experts who estimate that if farmers were forced to buy new seeds at each planting, the global market would be worth over 45 billion dollars.

ETC researchers estimate that if allowed to sell Terminator seeds, the industry will earn at least an additional 10 billion dollars from farmers in developing countries. They say that Brazilian farmers will have to pay no less than 500 million dollars a year to buy soybean seeds, while the purchase of seeds for wheat and cotton crops will cost peasants in Pakistan more than 120 million dollars a year.

Follow the money.