UN Upholds Terminator Ban
4 April 2006 Seeds with the Terminator trait are genetically engineered to produce infertile seeds at harvest. The trait was designed to protect the intellectual property of biotech seed producers, which have been cheated in the past by farmers re-planting or re-selling seed without licenses. Opponents fear that the trait could pose severe threats both to culturally-engrained farming practices and to the ecosystem; if the crops were allowed to cross-breed with normal plants, it is feared that the Terminator trait could spread to inintended plantlife.
Over the past two weeks, thousands of peasant farmers, including those from Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (Movimento Sem Terra) protested daily outside the UN meeting to demand a ban, and the women of the international Via Campesina movement of peasant farmers staged a powerful silent protest inside the meeting on March 23.
The CBD’s moratorium on Terminator, adopted six years ago, was under attack by three governments — Australia, Canada, and New Zealand — which insisted on a case-by-case risk assessment of the technology.
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