Corporate Biopiracy and the Terminator Seed

The terminator seed briefly made headlines in 1998 when the ETC Group revealed that the US Department of Agriculture had patented this abhorrent technology.

“We estimate that the US Department of Agriculture received over 10,000 emails and letters protesting its support of genetic seed sterilization, and calling on the Dept. to abandon the technology,” said ETC Group director Hope Shand, who coined the name “terminator seed” for these genetic devices.

“The public outcry forced Monsanto, the biggest player in genetically modified crops and one of the world’s largest pesticide firms to publicly pledge that it would not develop the technology… The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity supported a de facto moratorium on Terminator technology in 2000.”

But quietly, according to Hope Shand, and under a near whiteout in the US media, the corporate biopirates are making moves to impose terminator seed technology on the rest of the world.

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