Last Friday, March 24, during the Eight Meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity held in Curitiba, Brazil, social organizations celebrated the working group’s unanimous rejection to the suspension of the moratorium on the technology known as Terminator. Although the resolution must still be submitted to the plenary meeting for approval, the ban is expected to be maintained until the next meeting of the Convention in 2008.

According to ETC Group researcher Silvia Ribeiro, in her article Terminator: Towards bioslavery, “At the end of the 1990s, the United States Government developed, together with the seed company Delta & Pine Land, the ‘Terminator’ technology to produce seeds that would be sterile in the second generation. These ‘suicide’ seeds have no use except for business: the purpose is to stop farmers from reproducing their seeds, forcing them to buy new seeds for each sowing cycle (…) In 2000, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) called on governments to prohibit testing and commercialization of the Terminator technology, establishing a de facto global moratorium. Brazil and India have already banned the use of this technology in their countries (…) In the last decade, ten companies have gained control of 49% of global seed trade. The three largest (Monsanto, Dupont-Pioneer and Syngenta) control 32% of the global seed market and 33% of world sales of pesticides. Together with Delta & Pine, they have 86% of all patents regarding variants of the Terminator technology and dominate global industrial agricultural research.”¹

Rel-UITA is well-acquainted with Delta & Pine Land. In November 1998, this US company dumped over 600 tons of pretreated cotton seeds in a 1½ hectare lot just a hundred meters away from an elementary school in the rural community of Rincon'í, 120 kilometers from the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion.

The agrotoxic substances contained in these seeds represent more than four tons of chemical products, some of which are extremely hazardous to human health and the environment. In addition, the seeds carry a genetically modified bacteria grown in the laboratory, whose accumulation in such a reduced area could have unforeseeable consequences, as this type of contamination is the first of its kind and there are no previous experiences to draw on to try to prevent its effects.²

Nearly 1,500 people -most of them children- were directly affected, and many are suffering from aftereffects which even today are only partially known. Not only did the Paraguayan State fail to acknowledge its responsibility in this incident (when the seeds entered the country they had already expired), no other government since has been sensitive enough to provide healthcare for the victims, who have been abandoned to their miserable fate.

After six years of organized struggle supported by Rel-UITA, the people of Rincon'í obtained their first victory in court, when two of the persons responsible for the dumping were found guilty of committing a crime against the environment and sentenced to prison. The third person responsible was Eric Lorenz, who fled the country and has been declared a fugitive by a Paraguayan court.

This same company, Delta & Pine, who didn’t hesitate to destroy the life of a rural community by dumping its toxic waste on it, is one of the transnational corporations that is now attempting to lift the ban on Terminator at the Curitiba meeting, using ever-changing and deceptive arguments.

Despite last week’s partial victory, there is no doubt that multinational biotechnology industries will continue to develop sterile seed technology. “Terminator” will stick its head out at the next CDB meeting in 2008 (COP9). “The only solution is an absolute ban on the technology once and for all,” Pat Mooney, of the International Campaign to Terminate Terminator, concluded.

Only two countries have banned production and commercialization of Terminator in their territories: India and Brazil. In this sense, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who opened the meeting on Wednesday the 29^th, declared in his speech that “Biodiversity -all the different life forms- is our planet’s greatest treasure. Anything that might threaten biodiversity or conspire against the equal distribution of resources must be rejected as a threat to the survival of the human race and the Earth. Brazil’s understanding of this was what guided its position at this Conference, leading it to maintain the spirit of the COP5, held in Nairobi, where the ban on sterile seeds was set. Whatever threatens life or monopolizes access to its resources does not serve the common cause of humanity.”

Just as in Paraguay it flaunted its extreme social irresponsibility and exhibited a cruel and neocolonialist cynicism, Delta & Pine, along with the other associated transnational corporations will continue to push to lift the moratorium and free Terminator technology, because they know that that would put humanity in their hands: whoever controls food controls the world.

Carlos Amorín

© Rel-UITA

April 21, 2006

FOOTNOTES

1 La Jornada, Mexico. March 2, 2006

2 See “Seeds of death. Delta & Pine’s toxic waste in Paraguay”, 1999, Rel-UITA. More information in our site

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