Terminator technology: Poor farmers at risk warns Progressio

As the world faces up to the impact of global food shortages, the livelihoods of 1.4 billion of the world's poorest farmers are at risk from 'terminator' technology, Sol Oyuela, Progressio's Environmental Officer, warned in the Guardian newspaper.

Sol argued that at the Bonn Summit on biodiversity this month the UK Government must strongly back the existing global ban on terminator technology.

"As the world grapples with the impact of global food shortages (Six million Ethiopian children at risk of malnutrition, May 21), the livelihoods of 1.4 billion of the world's poorest farmers who rely on harvesting seeds from one crop for sowing the next season is under threat from biotech companies which are pushing to commercialise "terminator" technology - genetic engineering that results in plants producing sterile seeds. The advent of these so-called suicide seeds represent an insidious attempt to privatise plant life - and force poor families in developing countries to buy new seeds each year from the large companies that control the $19bn global seed market.

A global ban on terminator technology struck eight years ago is now under threat from a powerful alliance of biotech companies and countries with vested interests. They argue terminator technology should be considered on a case-by-case basis, thereby undermining the blanket moratorium. We fear the ban will once again come under pressure at this week's UN summit on the convention on biological diversity in Bonn.

Biotech companies' claims that terminator technology will prevent contamination between GM and non-GM crops are hotly contested, yet the EU and, by implication, British taxpayers are contributing to the development of the technology through a £3.4m EU research project investigating ways that seeds can be brought back to life with chemicals. In the developing world, small-scale farming is how millions of families survive. It is vital that at the Bonn summit this month the UK government strongly supports the continuing global ban on terminator technology".

Read Sol's latest thoughts and observations on her weblog now.