NOTE: Listed below are just some of the civil society groups that have condemned the FAO technical conference in Guadalajara, Mexico that starts today.
---
---
To the organizers of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization International Technical Conference on Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries:

We the undersigned civil society organizations are appalled at the decision of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to sponsor a technical conference on agricultural biotechnology at this time, in this place, the birthplace of maize. The conference is taking place as the Mexican government moves to introduce genetically engineered maize in field trials, threatening the center of origin of maize and its most important center of diversity with irreversible contamination, a move being fought vocally and vigorously -- in this the UN International Year of Biodiversity -- by Mexican civil society, indigenous peoples, campesinos, and all those who stand in defense of maize and its history in Mexico.

The center of diversity of maize in Mexico is a resource of unparalleled importance for humanity. It is the repository of our future options, our genetic alternatives, as we confront the difficult challenges of climate change and continued agricultural production in environments degraded by agrochemical pollution.

Mexico is the birthplace of maize and custodian of its genetic diversity, diversity now threatened by contamination from the field trials. By holding this conference at this time in Mexico, the FAO appears to condone this dangerous step.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a comprehensive, peer-reviewed assessment of the state of agricultural knowledge by over 400 scientists and development experts from around the globe, co-sponsored by the FAO and other UN agencies, has concluded that genetically engineered crops are not likely to contribute substantial solutions to the fundamental problems facing agriculture today. Genetic engineering is a technology in search of a problem, an expensive and risky distraction from real solutions to address problems of hunger, poverty and the impending challenges of climate change. Increased funding for ecological farming solutions that repair degraded ecosystems and provide resilience in the face of climate change -- not business as usual -- are the way forward.

Unfortunately huge sums of money are instead being spent on this conference, by the international community and the Mexican government, to clean the image of a technology that risks contaminating centers of crop diversity, increases pesticide use and, through patenting, takes away farmers’ historic and fundamental right to save seeds. The FAO should instead be using its resources to implement the policy options found in the 2000-page document resulting from the International Agriculture Assessment.

The world clearly faces huge challenges ahead to seriously address hunger and poverty in the face of a changing climate. The wisest scientists and agriculturalists of the world have provided us a blueprint for the way forward in the IAASTD report. One of the oldest agricultural civilizations of the world has given us a wealth of maize diversity. Nothing less than how to protect and use these resources in a way that is sustainable, socially just and beneficial for the world's poorest peoples and the planet's fragile ecosystems must be the agenda of the conference.

Signatories

African Biodiversity Network
African Centre for Biosafety
AgriCultures Network, Netherlands
All India Drug Action Network, India
Anthra, India
Asociacion ANDES, Peru
AS-PTA, Agricultura Familiar e Agroecologia, Brazil
Biowatch South Africa
Californians for GE-free Agriculture, USA
Cenesta, Iran
Center for Food Safety, USA
Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, India
Consumer Rights for Safe Food, Philippines
Diverse Women for Diversity
Doctors for Food & Biosafety, India
Ecological Society of the Philippines
Edmonds Institute, USA
Egyetemets Létezés Természetvédelmi Egyesület (ETK), Hungary
Environmental Studies Institute, Philippines
EQUIVITA Scientific Committee, Italy
Federation of Ecological and Environmental Organizations (FEEO), Cyprus
FIAN International
Food Systems Integrity, USA
Foundation for Genetic Resource, Energy, Ecology and Nutrition, India
Friends of the Earth International
Friends of the Earth, USA
Gaia Foundation, United Kingdom
Gen-ethisches Netzwerk (Gen-ethical Network), Germany
Genetic Rights Foundation, Italy
GM Freeze, United Kingdom
GM Watch, United Kingdom
Green Convergence, Philippines
Greenpeace
ILEIA, Centre for Learning on Sustainable Agriculture, Netherlands
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, USA
Institute for Culture and Ecology, Kenya
Institute for Responsible Technology, USA
Institute for Sustainable Development, Ethiopia
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)
International Peoples Health Council (South Asia )
Justice and Peace Desk, Diocese of Marbel, Philippines
Kenyan Debt Relief Network (KENDREN)
Kheti Virasat Mission, India
MASIPAG (Farmer Scientist Partnership for Development), Philippines
MIJARC
Munlochy Vigil, Scotland
Navdanya, India
Network Opposed to Genetically Modified Organisms, Philippines
NOAH, Friends of the Earth, Denmark
Oakland Institute, USA
Partido Kalikasan (Philippine Green Party)
PELUM-Kenya
Pesticide Action Network North America
PLANT (Partners for the Land & Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples), USA
Practical Action, United Kingdom
Provincial Organic Agriculture Program, Office of the Provincial Agriculturalist, Negros Occidental, Philippines
RAFI-USA
Save Our Seeds, Germany
Servicio de Información Mesoamericano sobre Agricultura Sostenible (SIMAS), Nicaragua
Soil Association, United Kingdom
Sunray Harvesters, India
Third World Network
Washington Biotechnology Action Council, USA
Wervel Belgium
WFFP, Sri Lanka
49th Parallel Biotechnology Consortium