Canada's Terminator Seeds
Today The Guardian reports:
An international moratorium on the use of one of the world's most controversial GM food technologies may be broken today if the Canadian government gets seed sterilisation backed at a UN meeting.
Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Canada wants all governments to accept the testing and commercialisation of "terminator" crop varieties. These are genetically engineered to produce only infertile seeds which farmers cannot replant.
Read It:
I'd like to hear some Canadian feedback on this development. On the one hand, the use of Genetically-modified seeds may mean less reliance on pesticides, which could be a good thing. People from Walkerton, for example, paid a heavy price due to contamination of their water supply. Then again, it seems that this move would increase the reliance of farmers on the products of one particular company, Monsato, ensuring them of a an agricultural monopoly.
An international moratorium on the use of one of the world's most controversial GM food technologies may be broken today if the Canadian government gets seed sterilisation backed at a UN meeting.
Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Canada wants all governments to accept the testing and commercialisation of "terminator" crop varieties. These are genetically engineered to produce only infertile seeds which farmers cannot replant.
Read It:
I'd like to hear some Canadian feedback on this development. On the one hand, the use of Genetically-modified seeds may mean less reliance on pesticides, which could be a good thing. People from Walkerton, for example, paid a heavy price due to contamination of their water supply. Then again, it seems that this move would increase the reliance of farmers on the products of one particular company, Monsato, ensuring them of a an agricultural monopoly.
