GENETIC ENGINEERING CAMPAIGN

Genetic Engineering

 

Genetic Engineering in food and agriculture is not the answers to overcome the crisis of hunger and malnutrition today. The answer lies in our structural changes in the access to land, food and productive resources and political power, combined with ecological technologies via farmer-led research. Genetic engineering on the other hand promises to take us to the opposite direction. The TNCs that control the global seed market not only creating an unprecedented dependence of farmers on global agrochemical TNCs but also unparalleled corporate monopoly control over the world's seed and food supply.

 

GE crops are of great threat to biodiversity. Despite the threat a number of TNCs have already patented on Terminator Technology to produce sterile seeds at harvest for the cause of profits without acknowledging the risk of this technology it will devastate the livelihoods of more than 1.4 billion small farmers particularly in the south who use farm seeds as their primary seed cause.

 

In 1998, a regional workshop on Genetic Engineering has been organized and prior to that the GE campaign has been emerged. In the year 2000, 14 grassroots organizations and NGOs, embarked on a 17-day caravan called the People's Caravan 2000 (PC 2000). The PC 2000 highlights the importance of the exchange of seeds with the arising GE issues. From the Peasant Scientist Conference 2001 has achieved a series of discussion on the need to focus on GE rice because it is of great threat to our local rice as rice is also our staple crop which affects us politically, economically and socially.

 

To counter this threat the GE campaign in PAN AP coordinating a coalition of No to GE Rice in Asia. This is a coalition with our partner’s countries in Asia are:

 

  • Asian Peasant Coalition (APC)
  • Consumers Korea (CK)
  • Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Education (CEDAC)
  • Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN)
  • Gita Pertiwi (Indonesia)
  • Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)
  • Lok Sanjh Foundation (Pakistan)
  • MASIPAG (Philippines)
  • Members of the Network Opposed to GMOs (NO GMOs!) in the Philippines
  • No Patents on Life (NPoL) Asia
  • No GMO Campaign (Japan)
  • Foundation of Reclaiming Rural Agriculture and Food Sovereignty (Thailand)
  • Resistance and Solidarity Against Agricultural Transnational Corporations (RESIST)
  • Sibat ng Agham at Teknolohiya (SIBAT, Philippines)
  • Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE)
  • Third World Network (TWN)

 

The objectives of GE campaigns are:

 

  • To assess the status of GE in the region via overviews, country reports, etc.
  • To identify key issues for intervention, analysis and action
  • To identify key points of intervention at local, national, regional and international levels
  • Raising public awareness and action on the GE issue in Asia
  • Strategizing and undertaking concrete action to influence the policy on GE in Asia

 

Ultimately GE campaign aims:

  1. To protect the human health and the environment from the risk of GE food and agriculture
  2. To expose the manipulation by corporation to commercialize GE
  3. To strengthen the resistance of CSOs, the peoples’ organizations against GE through information documentations, enabling methodology, exchange learning and focused on workshops and campaigns
  4. To enable farmers to be able to choose GE free products