Sustainable Agriculture and It's Future. Send your opinion.
The following information on the future to sustainable agriculture in the world was sent to me as an e-mail. For more information on this subject please contact Vikas Narula at the end of this message.
On 11/16/98, nselections wrote:
Dear Natural Law Party Friends, plus others,
This is an urgent call to action to prevent possible disasters of
unimaginable magnitude. The USDA is considering licensing Monsanto's
technology to make seeds fertile for one generation only, which would
mean
that farmers would have to buy seed every year, putting them at the
mercy
of fluctuating market conditions, and possible communication and
distribution problems. This could be especially disastrous in
developing
countries, where social unrest could interfere with receipt of American
seed.
There is also the probability that these genetically manipulated
organisms
will cross-pollinate with "wild" plants to inhibit seed production in
naturally occuring species as well, which could create an ecological
disaster. There is an urgent international email campaign on by RAFI
(Rural Advancement
Foundation International) at:
http://www.rafi.org/usda.html
to stop the USDA from negotiating with Monsanto to license the
Terminator
technology. This feature of genetic manipulation sterilizes seeds from
harvests so that farmers are forced to go back to the commercial seed
market to purchase seeds for the next season. Traditionally farmers keep
their seeds for the next season's planting. This is especially true in
third world countries. And guess what?
Monsanto has targeted developing countries as their main market...talk
about strangleholds on the poor, much less the global food market.
The campaign is fully automated, so one can send a letter to different
senators and USDA officials with just a click of the mouse - you don't
have
to write
anything. It also doesn't matter what country one is from. The
negotiations are underway now and will be finalizing these coming weeks.
Please take a few minutes to go into the RAFI website
http://www.rafi.org/usda.html and send a protest letter; or for maximum
effectiveness, take a few more minutes and handwrite a few points and
mail
your letter to:
The Honorable Dan Glickman
Secretary of Agriculture
200-A Whitten Bldg.
1400 Independence Ave., SW
Washington DC 20250
USA
Please pass on this information to all your friends, favourite news
groups
etc, and any international connections you may have. We were successful
in
saving Organic Standards (at least for the moment) in the U.S. with a
similar letter-writing campaign, and this issue has even
further-reaching
consequences.
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Vikas Narula tel: 612-915-8000
Vital Images, Inc. fax: 612-915-8010
3100 West Lake St., Suite 100 web: vnarula@vitalimages.com
Minneapolis, MN 55416 url: www.vitalimages.com
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Organic Farming
