To advocate for Patent-FREE seeds, biodiversity,
food sovereignty and farmers rights

Institute of Near Eastern & African Studies (INEAS)
http://www.INEAS.org

Contact: Wafaa Al-Natheema
Email: INEAS@aol.com and INEAS_1994@yahoo.com
Tel: 1 (617) 86-INEAS (864-6327)
Skype: INEAS_CambridgeContact ISD Endorsers:

 

Fran Murrell of MADGE Australia Inc.
Tel. (Australia): 0401 407 944
Email: info@madge.org.au
Website: www.madge.org.au

Barbara H. Peterson of Farm Wars
Email: admin@seedladynetwork.com
Tel. (USA) 1 541-205-0110
Skype: farmwars

For Immediate Release
Friday, April 20, 12

Cambridge, Massachusetts – Organizations, activists, farmers, scientists and organic-food advocates around the world have endorsed and observed April 26 as International Seed Day (ISD)

The purpose of the ISD is to educate the public and inform the media about:

  • the importance of biodiversity and how to practice seed saving;
  • the dangers of genetically modified food;
  • the monopoly of agribusiness corporations;
  • farmers’ rights
  • the injustice of seed patenting; and
  • how to resist the giant agribusiness corporations in their tireless efforts to control seed resources;

Join us to learn and educate about patent-free seeds and farmers’ rights, to mobilize a worldwide movement to expose the giant agricultural corporations.

For additional information and a list of endorsers, see: http://www.ineas.org/in/ev/seed-day.htm#endorsers

Among the organizations endorsering International Seed Day is MADGE Australia Inc., which “researches the food system to allow people to choose food that is good for those who eat it, grow it, produce and sell it; and for land and environment.” Fran Murrell of MADGE has recent concerns: “Rice being contaminated by GM even though no GM rice has been officially commercialized. It was picked up by Cert ID in Europe. The rice comes from China, India and Pakistan but who knows what is going on?”
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13842:basmati-rice-gm-contaminated

Barbara H. Peterson is an ISD endorser who lives on a small ranch in Oregon where she raises geese, chickens and horses. Barbara feels that this rural lifestyle is being threatened by a combination of increasing federal regulations and invasive GMO technology that are combining to make it next to impossible to raise animals and organic food. “It is time to step up to the plate and fight or lose it all without a whimper. We can make a difference.”   She is working to create the Seed Lady Network to provide an online venue for people to reach out across the world or across the state to barter, sell, or just give seeds to others who will cherish them and keep a non-GMO supply of good, clean seeds available.

On April 26, 2004, Paul Bremer, the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in IRAQ, issued and signed Order 81, which prohibits Iraqi farmers from reusing seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law. Despite that Order 81 was not successful due to the instability inside IRAQ, the early looting of Baghdad’s Seed Bank, the destruction cause by war, high-percentage unemployment and lack of security, all devastated the status of agriculture in IRAQ.

Many developing countries in Africa and Asia have been suffering from these unjust laws and the monopoly by the agricultural giants. Therefore organizations, activists, organic food advocates, farm owners and farmers around the world are joining hand to advocate for patent-free seeds and biodiversity and to educate about the criminal practices by agricultural corporations and how their unjust laws have and will affect the future of agriculture.

More information:
The Institute of Near Eastern & African Studies (INEAS)
1 (617) 86-INEAS (864-6327)
INEAS@aol.com or INEAS_1994@yahoo.com

Full text of Order 81http://www.trade.gov/static/iraq_memo81.pdf
Rice contamination: http://www.enterisi.it/doc/Rice%20Food%20302012.pdf
Iraqi Agriculture (English): http://www.ineas.org/in/pdfs/RVF_eng.pdf
Iraqi Agriculture (Arabic): http://www.ineas.org/in/pdfs/RVF_ar.pdf
People’s rights to water and food: http://www.navdanya.org/organic/index.htm
GM Science Exposed: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/pdf/Papers_on_GM_Hazards.pdf
The Agenda in Afghanistan & Iraq: http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=217
International Seed Day & Order 81
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/latha-jishnu-order-81the-plunderfarming/353518/

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments are closed.