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Seed Activism: Patent Politics and Litigation in the Global South

Online Book Talk by By Karine E Peschard, Ph.D

Tuesday, 13th December 2022, 5.30 pm to 7.30 pm (IST)

(Video recording of this event is accessible here)

(Download the report here)

The author and publisher have made the book open access

Overview

The bedrock of sustainable human futures is in conserving biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge, and ensuring local community’s right to seed sovereignty and seed purity is protected. A variety of corporate and state efforts, however, are systematically accessing these bioresources without priorly informing and seeking permission from communities who have conserved these resources over millenia, and then turning them into corporatised, industrialised, commodified, chemicalised, transgenic and proprietary products.

In ‘Seed Activism’, Karine Peschard explores the effects of these developments on people’s lives, while uncovering the role of power—material, institutional, and discursive—in shaping laws and legal systems. The expansion of corporate intellectual property (IP), she shows, negatively impacts farmers’ rights and, by extension, the right to food, since small farms produce the bulk of food for domestic consumption.

The book talk will be followed with an introduction by Bhargavi Rao and Leo Saldanha to Environment Support’s Group’s B.t.Brinjal biopiracy case against Monsanto/Mahyco et al, and an update by Aruna Rodriques on her almost two decades long challenge in the Supreme Court against release of GMOs in India on socio-economic, ecological and health grounds. 

ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಚರ್ಚೆ: ಬೀಜ ಕ್ರಿಯಾಶೀಲತೆ

ಸುಸ್ಥಿರ ಮಾನವ ಭವಿಷ್ಯದ ತಳಹದಿಯೆಂದರೆ ಜೀವವೈವಿಧ್ಯತೆಯನ್ನು ಸಂರಕ್ಷಿಸುವುದು, ಸಂಬಂಧಿತ ಸಾಂಪ್ರದಾಯಿಕ ಜ್ಞಾನ ಮತ್ತು ಬೀಜ ಸಾರ್ವಭೌಮತ್ವ ಮತ್ತು ಬೀಜ ಶುದ್ಧತೆಗೆ ಸ್ಥಳೀಯ ಸಮುದಾಯದ ಹಕ್ಕನ್ನು ಖಾತ್ರಿಪಡಿಸುವುದು. ಆದಾಗ್ಯೂ, ವಿವಿಧ ಸಾಂಸ್ಥಿಕ ಮತ್ತು ರಾಜ್ಯ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಗಳು, ಸಹಸ್ರಾರು ವರ್ಷಗಳಿಂದ ಈ ಸಂಪನ್ಮೂಲಗಳನ್ನು ಸಂರಕ್ಷಿಸಿರುವ ಸಮುದಾಯಗಳಿಂದ ಮುಂಚಿತವಾಗಿ ತಿಳಿಸದೆ ಮತ್ತು ಅನುಮತಿಯನ್ನು ಪಡೆಯದೆ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥಿತವಾಗಿ ಈ ಜೈವಿಕ ಸಂಪನ್ಮೂಲಗಳನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಿವೆ. ನಂತರ ಅವರು ಅವುಗಳನ್ನು ಕಾರ್ಪೊರೇಟ್, ಕೈಗಾರಿಕೀಕರಣ, ಸರಕು, ರಾಸಾಯನಿಕ, ಟ್ರಾನ್ಸ್ಜೆನಿಕ್ ಮತ್ತು ಸ್ವಾಮ್ಯದ ಉತ್ಪನ್ನಗಳಾಗಿ ಪರಿವರ್ತಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ.

‘ಸೀಡ್ ಆಕ್ಟಿವಿಸಂ’ ನಲ್ಲಿ, ಕರೀನ್ ಪೆಸ್ಚಾರ್ಡ್ ಕಾನೂನುಗಳು ಮತ್ತು ಕಾನೂನು ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆಗಳನ್ನು ರೂಪಿಸುವಲ್ಲಿ ಶಕ್ತಿ-ವಸ್ತು, ಸಾಂಸ್ಥಿಕ ಮತ್ತು ವಿವೇಚನಾಶೀಲ-ಪಾತ್ರದ ಪಾತ್ರವನ್ನು ಬಹಿರಂಗಪಡಿಸುವಾಗ, ಜನರ ಜೀವನದ ಮೇಲೆ ಈ ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆಗಳ ಪರಿಣಾಮಗಳನ್ನು ಪರಿಶೋಧಿಸಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಕಾರ್ಪೊರೇಟ್ ಬೌದ್ಧಿಕ ಆಸ್ತಿಯ (IP) ವಿಸ್ತರಣೆಯು ರೈತರ ಹಕ್ಕುಗಳ ಮೇಲೆ ನಕಾರಾತ್ಮಕ ಪರಿಣಾಮ ಬೀರುತ್ತದೆ ಮತ್ತು ವಿಸ್ತರಣೆಯ ಮೂಲಕ ಆಹಾರದ ಹಕ್ಕನ್ನು ತೋರಿಸುತ್ತದೆ, ಏಕೆಂದರೆ ಸಣ್ಣ ಸಾಕಣೆದಾರರು ದೇಶೀಯ ಬಳಕೆಗಾಗಿ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಆಹಾರವನ್ನು ಉತ್ಪಾದಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ.

ಭಾರ್ಗವಿ ರಾವ್ ಮತ್ತು ಲಿಯೋ ಸಲ್ಡಾನ್ಹಾ ಅವರು ಬಿಟಿ ಬದನೆ ಪ್ರಕರಣದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಯೋಪೈರಸಿಯನ್ನು ಬಹಿರಂಗಪಡಿಸುವ ಇಎಸ್‌ಜಿಯ ಪಿಐಎಲ್ ಕುರಿತು ಮಾತನಾಡುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಅರುಣಾ ರೋಡ್ರಿಕ್ಸ್ ಅವರು ಭಾರತದಲ್ಲಿ GMO ಗಳ ಬಿಡುಗಡೆಯ ವಿರುದ್ಧ ಸುಪ್ರೀಂ ಕೋರ್ಟ್‌ನಲ್ಲಿ ಸುಮಾರು ಎರಡು ದಶಕಗಳ ಸುದೀರ್ಘ ಸವಾಲಿನ ಕುರಿತು ನವೀಕರಣವನ್ನು ಒದಗಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ.

बुक टॉक: बीज सक्रियता

स्थायी मानव भविष्य का आधार जैव विविधता के संरक्षण में है, पारंपरिक ज्ञान से जुड़ा है और स्थानीय समुदाय के बीज संप्रभुता और बीज शुद्धता के अधिकार को सुनिश्चित करना है। सहस्राब्दी के लिए इन संसाधनों का संरक्षण करने वाले कृषक समुदायों से सहमति लिए बिना ऐसे जैव संसाधनों का दावा करने वाले कॉर्पोरेट और राज्य के हस्तक्षेप से यह खतरा पैदा हो गया है। कॉर्पोरेटकृत, औद्योगीकृत, कमोडिटीकृत, रासायनिककृत, ट्रांसजेनिक और मालिकाना उत्पाद मानव भविष्य और जैव विविधता के लिए खतरा हैं।

‘सीड एक्टिविज्म’ में, काराइन पेसचार्ड कानूनों और कानूनी प्रणालियों को आकार देने में शक्ति (भौतिक, संस्थागत और विवेकपूर्ण) की भूमिका को उजागर करके लोगों के जीवन पर इस तरह के विकास के निहितार्थ की व्याख्या करता है। और समझाता है कि कैसे कॉर्पोरेट बौद्धिक संपदा (आईपी) का विस्तार किसानों के अधिकारों पर नकारात्मक प्रभाव डालता है, एक गंभीर चिंता का विषय है क्योंकि छोटे खेत घरेलू खपत के लिए बड़ी मात्रा में भोजन का उत्पादन करते हैं। जिसका परिणाम भोजन के अधिकार पर हमला है।

भार्गवी राव और लियो सल्दान्हा बीटी बैंगन मामले में बायोपायरेसी को उजागर करने वाली ईएसजी की जनहित याचिका पर बोलेंगे। अरुणा रॉड्रिक्स भारत में जीएमओ की रिहाई के खिलाफ सुप्रीम कोर्ट में अपनी लगभग दो दशकों की लंबी चुनौती पर अपडेट प्रदान करेंगी।

Author

Karine Peschard is an Associate Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy, where she conducts research on the rights of peasants, in particular the right to seeds. She is also an Associate Researcher at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Her expertise and publications relate to intellectual property regimes in agriculture, agrobiodiversity, legal activism and seed sovereignty, with a regional focus on Brazil and India.

Discussants

Aruna Rodriques is the lead petitioner in the Supreme Court of India challenging the release of Genetically Modified Organisms, particularly in food crops, on a variety of socio-economic, environmental and public health grounds. She has over two decades collated, arguably, the most authoritative evidence from around the world why GMO foods are unnecessary for India and how the present a clear and present danger to food sovereignty, food security and farmers rights over seeds.

Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmental thinker, activist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer and science policy advocate, is the founder of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (India) and President of Navdanya International. Trained as a Physicist, she shifted to inter-disciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy. In 1982 she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), an independent research institute that addresses the most significant problems of ecology of our times, and two years later, Navdanya (‘nine seeds’) the movement in defence of biodiversity and small farmers.

Shri Aneel Prasad Hegde is a  Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). He has served as National General Secretary of the Samata Party and Janata Dal (United) when George Fernandes was its President. He has conserved (and grown) 134 variety of paddy seeds in Udupi District. He coordinated in Kandla, Gujarat a campaign against a project of US multinational Cargill Inc. which resulted in the company’s withdrawal.  He has over decades worked with campaigns against the 1994 GATT treaty which laid the foundations for according patent rights to corporations over seeds. His patriotism and struggle to protect farmers rights has resulted in over 4000 arrests, and also serving time in Tihar Jail with veteran trade unionist and former Defence Minister of India, late George Fernandes.

Farida Akhter, Executive Director UBINIG (Policy Research for Development Alternative) and organizer of Nayakrishi Andolon. Petitioner against the Court case against the approval of Bt brinjal. Have done extensive field research on Bt brinjal before and after approval for field cultivation. Member of Coalition against GM crops in Bangladesh. Have done research on Golden Rice and other GM crops. UBINIG also runs the Community Seed Wealth centre, which has a collection of over 2500 rice varieties.

Vivek Cariappa is a self-taught organic farmer who farms with his wife Juli and their sons in Nugu valley between Bandipur, Wayand and Nagarhole forests. He has been active in farmers protests against GMO and is now working on tackling the spread of toxic herbicide tolerant crops in eco-sensitive zones. He has recently authored  “On the Canvas of my time: Our Search for Sustainability“.

Leo F. Saldanha is full-time Coordinator and also Trustee of ESG. See more about Leo here.

Bhargavi S. Rao is Senior Fellow and Trustee of ESG. See more about Bhargavi here.

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