European Seeds Seminar Calls for a Ban on Terminator

Poitiers, France, 25th and 26th November 2005

Resolution to Call for a Ban on Terminator Technology because of its European and Global Impacts on Farmers, Food Sovereignty and the Environment

Participants at the European Seeds Seminar, who came from 15 European countries and 21 countries in other continents (1), meeting in Poitiers, France on 26th November 2005 supported the international campaign to Ban Terminator technology – its development, testing and commercialisation (2).

Terminator, a technology requiring multiple genetic modifications, will stop farmers from being able to save and reuse seed. It is designed to prevent farm-saved seed from germinating so that farmers have to buy new seeds each season. It has been developed to increase corporate control over seeds by the biotech companies. Terminator directly infringes Farmers’ Rights, undermines food sovereignty and presents a threat to farmers’ livelihoods and agricultural biodiversity.

The participants at the seminar:
•Opposed the use of Terminator or any other GURTs (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies) that would prevent farmers from saving and re-using seeds;
•Called on the European Patent Office to revoke the patent on Terminator technology granted to Delta & Pine Land and United States Department of Agriculture on 5th October 2005 (3);
•Rejected the false claim that Terminator technology could permit co-existence of conventional and GM crops – it cannot be a biosafety tool;
•Criticised the investment in research on Terminator technology which diverts funds and effort from agriculturally useful investigation;
•Called on peasants and rural peoples to actively expose and oppose Terminator technology and GM crops and intensify the struggle against imperialist globalisation and the agrochemical transnational corporations; and
•Called on their governments to:
oBan Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs) and Terminator, and
oDefend the existing de facto moratorium on the development, testing and commercialisation of Terminator technology,
in upcoming meetings of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in March 2006.

(1) At the seminar there were about 140 participants from national and international farmers’ organisations, NGOs, agricultural research organisations and national, regional and international civil society networks concerned with seeds, agricultural biodiversity, food and farming.
(2) See www.banterminator.org
(3) The Terminator patent, EP 0 775 212 B1, was granted by the European Patent Office on 5th October 2005 to US-based Delta & Pine Land (D&PL Technology Holding Company LLC ) and the United States of America, represented by the Secretary of Agriculture. According to further data bank research the patent was already granted in similar versions in the USA, further applications were filed in Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Turkey and South Africa. A patent was also granted in Canada on October 11 2005.

Adopted at 16:15 on 26th November 2005, by unanimous vote in the final Plenary.