GM Watch
  • Main Menu
    • Home
    • News
      • Newsletter subscription
      • News Reviews
      • News Languages
        • Notícias em Português
        • Nieuws in het Nederlands
        • Nachrichten in Deutsch
      • Archive
    • Articles
      • GM Myth Makers
      • GM Reports
      • GM Quotes
      • GM Myths
      • Non-GM successes
      • GM Firms
        • Monsanto: a history
        • Monsanto: resources
        • Bayer: a history
        • Bayer: resources
    • Videos
      • Latest Videos
      • Must see videos
      • Agriculture videos
      • Labeling videos
      • Animals videos
      • Corporations videos
      • Corporate takeover videos
      • Contamination videos
      • Latin America videos
      • India videos
      • Asia videos
      • Food safety videos
      • Songs videos
      • Protests videos
      • Biofuel myths videos
      • Index of GM crops and foods
      • Index of speakers
      • Health Effects
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donations
News and comment on genetically modified foods and their associated pesticides    
  • News
    • Newsletter subscription
    • News Reviews
    • News Languages
      • Notícias em Português
      • Nieuws in het Nederlands
      • Nachrichten in Deutsch
    • Archive
  • Articles
    • GM Myth Makers
    • GM Reports
    • GM Quotes
    • GM Myths
    • Non-GM successes
    • GM Firms
      • Monsanto: a history
      • Monsanto: resources
      • Bayer: a history
      • Bayer: resources
  • Donations
  • Videos
    • Index of speakers
    • Glyphosate Videos
    • Latest Videos
    • Must see videos
    • Health Effects
    • Agriculture videos
    • Labeling videos
    • Animals videos
    • Corporations videos
    • Corporate takeover videos
    • Contamination videos
    • Latin America videos
    • India videos
    • Asia videos
    • Food safety videos
    • Songs videos
    • Protests videos
    • Biofuel myths videos
    • Index of GM crops and foods
  • Contact
  • About
SUBSCRIBE TO REVIEWS

GMWatch Facebook cornfield banner

INTRODUCTION TO GM

GMO Myths and Facts front page.jpg

SCIENCE SUPPORTS REGULATION OF GENE EDITING

Plant tissue cultures

GENE EDITING: UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES AND RISKS

Damaged DNA on fire

GENE EDITING MYTHS AND REALITY

A guide through the smokescreen

Gene Editing Myths and Reality

ON-TARGET EFFECTS OF GENE EDITING

Damaged DNA

News Menu

  • Latest News
  • News Reviews
  • Archive
  • Languages

News Archive

  • 2022 articles
  • 2021 articles
  • 2020 articles
  • 2019 articles
  • 2018 articles
  • 2017 articles
  • 2016 articles
  • 2015 articles
  • 2014 articles
  • 2013 articles
  • 2012 articles
  • 2011 articles
  • 2010 articles
  • 2009 articles
  • 2008 articles
  • 2007 articles
  • 2006 articles
  • 2005 articles
  • 2004 articles
  • 2003 articles
  • 2002 articles
  • 2001 articles
  • 2000 articles

Please support GMWatch

Donations

You can donate via Paypal or credit/debit card.

Some of you have opted to give a regular donation. This is greatly appreciated as it helps place us on a more stable financial basis. Thank you for your support!

Brazil delays approving Terminator seed until February 2014

  • Print
  • Email
Details
Published: 26 December 2013
Twitter

Brazil’s Judicial Commission has postponed a bill allowing for GM terminator seeds.

Brazil delays approving terminator seed ’til Feb. 2014
Rady Ananda
Food Freedom News via nsnbc international, 22 Dec 2013
http://nsnbc.me/2013/12/22/brazil-delays-approving-terminator-seed-till-feb-2014/

Brazil’s Judicial Commission has tabled [postponed] a bill allowing for genetically modified terminator seeds until February 2014, when it will again take up the topic.

Terminator seeds are lab-engineered for sterility; genes are modified to switch on production of a toxin that would kill off developing plant embryos, reports Nature.

Another type of terminator technology is an inducible molecular mechanism, explains Ban Terminator. “The gene for seed sterility or germination can be turned on or off from the outside – by treating the plants with a chemical or other factor.”

The risk, according to biologists, is when (not if) the modified plant pollinates natural plants and passes on externally controlled sterility. The other risk is that all seeds will become controlled by corporations, so that seed saving becomes impossible. As the last 150 years have shown, when corporations control a market, things die and people go broke.

Since the introduction of GM seeds into the environment, innumerable contamination events have occurred. Back in 2006, it was determined that GM rice had contaminated a full third of the US rice supply.

By its own admission, the biotech industry cannot prevent genetic contamination. In court, Bayer CropScience defended its containment protocols, saying they “were equal to or exceeded industry standards when the test rice escaped into the general supplies,” adding, “Even the best practices can’t guarantee perfection.”

Last May, Oregon ag authorities confirmed that Monsanto’s GM wheat had contaminated a field on which it was never lawfully grown. In fact, those GM wheat trials had ended 8 years earlier.

A destructive technology incapable of being contained should be banned entirely. In fact, in 2000, 193 countries agreed to a moratorium on terminator technology at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. That agreement was reaffirmed in 2006, and is expected to be discussed in October 2014 in Korea at the next CBD meeting.

“Brazil is the frontline. If the agro-industry breaks the moratorium here, they’ll break it everywhere,” said Maria José Guazzelli, of Centro Ecológico, which represents a coalition of Brazilian NGOs.

Centro Ecológico presented a petition signed by 34,000 to the Brazilian authorities and is calling for more. Organizations can sign at Ban Terminator. English speakers can sign the petition on change.org. (NOTE: You must enter your first name (Nome), last name (Sobrenome), email address, street address (Endereço), city (Cidade), state (Estado), zip code (CEP); tick the first box if you want to receive mailings from change.org; tick the second box if you want to receive updates on the Terminator issue.)

Though Brazil initially plans to plant non-food terminator seeds, the door is opened to later approve food plantings with this technology. It hopes to plant terminator eucalyptus forests. Already seven states have planted GM trees in the Southeast US, replacing entire ecosystems with trees that exude pesticide from its roots to its bark to its leaves and twigs.

The Global Justice Ecology Project created a documentary in 2005 that describes GM trees as killing machines.

Menu

Home

Subscriptions

News Archive

News Reviews

Videos

Articles

GM Myth Makers

GM Reports

GM Myths

GM Quotes

Non-GM Successes

Contacts

Contact Us

About

Facebook

Twitter

Donations

Content 1999 - 2022 GMWatch.
Web Development By SCS Web Design