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VIDEO: Who Will Feed Us? The Peasant Food Web vs the Industrial Food Chain

Submitted by Trudi Zundel on

Peasant-led Agroecology and Food Sovereignty Feeds the World

More than a set of agricultural practices, agroecology is profoundly political, intertwined with food sovereignty and peasants’ and farmers’ rights. Small-scale farmers, peasants, pastoralists and small-scale fishers – who make up what ETC calls “The Peasant Food Web” – already grow 70% of the world’s food using only 25% of agricultural resources.

2019: Naming the Now

Submitted by Dru Oja Jay on

A dozen ways to start making sense of 2019 and beyond

Making sense of emerging trends in science and technology is a core part of what ETC Group does. We’re impatient to grasp the implications of new realities that are emerging around us, whether they relate to artificial intelligence, social engineering, extreme forms of digital genetic modification, corporate concentration, surveillance, authoritarianism or geoengineering.

Target Malaria’s Gene Drive Project Fails to Inform Local Communities of Risks: New Film

Submitted by Dru Oja Jay on

Target Malaria, a research consortium that aims to eradicate malaria-carrying species of mosquitoes using new genetic modification tools, does not have proper consent from communities for its experiment. That is the main message of a new short film that is being released this week.

“A Question of Consent: Exterminator Mosquitoes in Burkina Faso” documents conversations with residents of the areas where Target Malaria is conducting tests, as well as opposition from civil society groups in the region.

United Nations Hits the Brakes on Gene Drives

Submitted by Trudi Zundel on

Landmark Convention on Biological Diversity decision calls on governments to conduct strict risk assessments and seek indigenous and local peoples’ consent ahead of potential release of ‘exterminator’ technology.

Friends of the Earth International and ETC Group 

29 November 2018, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt: Today, the UN has made a significant global decision on how to govern a high-risk, new genetic engineering technology – gene drives[1].

Do Not Betray Africa on SynBio and Gene Drives

Submitted by Dru Oja Jay on

CSOs urge African governments to support moratorium

As representatives of a broad range of African civil society organisations (CSOs), we do not feel represented by the delegations of Nigeria and South Africa, speaking on behalf of African Group, in their attempt to speak on behalf of the people of Africa on the issue of synthetic biology (synbio) and gene drive organisms (GDOs). 

From Terminator to Exterminator

Submitted by Dru Oja Jay on

20 years after suicide seeds, civil society mobilizes in Egypt this week to stop the sequel – Gene Drive Organisms
History repeating
  • It has been twenty years since ETC Group and allies uncovered a US patent on what became known as “Terminator technology” – seeds genetically engineered to stop farmers breeding with them. Civil society and farmer movements protested that these “suicide seeds” would threaten seed-saving practices that are as old as agriculture. 

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