AUT: Terminator Seeds

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 10:06:47 -0500
From: ishgooda <ishgooda@xxxxxxx>
Reply-To: warriornet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: warriornet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: No free seeds

<<<----- previously howled ------->>>
*
*>
*>>RAFI News Release
*>>13 March 1998
*>>http://www.rafi.ca
*>>
*>>
*>>***  Biotech Activists Oppose the "Terminator Technology"
****
*>>***  New Patent Aims to Prevent Farmers from Saving Seed
****
*>>
*>>By the year 2000 - after a 12,000-year history of farming
*- farmers may no
*>>longer be able to save seed or breed improved varieties.
*The problem is
*>>not the Millennium Bug but the "Millennium Seed."
*>>
*>>The twelve thousand year old practice of farm families
*saving their best
*>>seed from one year's harvest for planting the next season
*may be coming to
*>>an end.  On March 3rd, an American cotton seed company and
*the U.S.
*>>Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced they had
*received a patent on a
*>>technique that genetically-disables a seed's capacity to
*germinate when
*>>planted again.  US Patent No. 5,723,765, granted to Delta
*& Pine Land Co.,
*>>doesn't just cover the firm's cotton and soybean seed
*business but
*>>potentially all cultivated crops.
*>>
*>>Under a research agreement with the USDA, the company has
*the exclusive
*>>right to license (or not) the new technology to others.
*While only cotton
*>>and tobacco seeds have been shown to respond to the new
*technique, the
*>>company plans to have what RAFI's Research Director Hope
*Shand has dubbed,
*>>"Terminator Technology" ready for a much wider range of
*crops shortly after the year 2000.
*
*clipped.........(see URL for complete article).
*
-<<----- SILENCE ------>>



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