Category Archives: Resistance

WORLD FOODLESS DAY, OCTOBER 16, 2017

Posted on by

Press Release

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World Report 2017 jointly released by FAO and other intergovernmental agencies have highlighted some shocking information: people suffering from hunger and malnourishment have risen from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016, of which a vast majority (520 million) live in Asia. Globally, it has also been made evident that conflict and climate change has a vastly negative impact on food security especially for rural communities, and is also a major reason for migration. This is the context of FAO ‘celebrating’ the World Food Day under the theme of “Change the future of migration. Invest in food security and rural development.” In short, millions of people from third world countries are fleeing their homes due to various factors including conflict, hunger, poverty, and a variety of climate change impacts such as floods, droughts, among others. Pakistan, in 2017 continues to be ranked as one of the least peaceful countries: among peaceful countries it ranks 152 of 166 counties.

To mark the ever-rising number of hungry in a country which has surplus wheat rotting in state warehouses, millions of Pakistanis are being displaced by state-sponsored militarism and hence losing land, livelihood, livestock – all that are essential for maintaining food and nutrition. Statistics shout the facts: Pakistan ranks 77 in109 countries for food security indicators; of every tenth person, six suffer from food insecurity; almost 44% children suffer from malnutrition where as 50% of women suffer from anemia.

These diabolical figures are a result of extreme oppression and inequity in the country; the most critical being inequitable land distribution. Forty-five percent of land is held by only 11% of big landlords. Millions of small and landless farmers are forced to produce under the exploitative, oppressive conditions of semi-feudalism, and now mounting hegemony of powerful agro-chemical corporations under the capitalist framework of neoliberalism have been allowed to renew colonization of our lands and resources. The multiple impacts of land and resource hegemony, conflict, climate change and destruction of our agricultural lands by intense use of dangerous chemical fertilizers has left the rural communities and urban poor suffering from the vast indignities of hunger and poverty. The concentration of power by the agri-business giants under the auspicious of World Trade Organisation (WTO) and its trade liberalization agreements, especially TRIPs is one of the major structural causes of rising world hunger.

Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity held a press conference and a protest at the Islamabad Press Conference, October 16, 2017 to register their protest against the ongoing heinous human rights violations being inflicted through concentrated wealth and control over resources especially land by the feudal and corporate elite in the country. PKMT leaders Altaf Hussain, Tariq Mehmood Pathani, and Azra Talat Sayeed spoke at the occasion.

PKMT calls out to all peoples organizations to increase the struggle for food sovereignty as the way forward to end the joint crippling impacts of semi-feudal and neoliberal policies being employed to plunder the land and productive resources of our people. PKMT demands a food and agriculture policy based on food sovereignty framework with equitable distribution of land, ensuring women’s farmers right to land. There cannot be just and lasting peace, sustainable development and prosperity without a people-led development agenda.

Released by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)

Urdu Press Release

Press Release World Foodless Day 2017 urdu

‘TILL THE FARMER GETS HIS LAND, POVERTY WILL NOT END’

Posted on by

 Haneen Rafi

Dawn, July 24, 2017

KARACHI: “The rights of the peasant will benefit greatly only by creating widespread social awareness of land reforms which can be our greatest weapon. And this cannot be possible without including women in this struggle,” said PPP Senator Taj Haider at a seminar organised by the Awami Workers Party in Karachi on Sunday.

Highlighting the importance of empowering the farmer and peasant, Mr Haider criticised the fact that Pakistan remained one of the few countries that allowed a system to persist in which a few individuals sitting at home directly benefitted from the farmer toiling away on the fields.

The urgency of the land reforms needed in Pakistan have remained a constant demand of the AWP in a bid to battle the monopoly of feudal land owners that have for long usurped the rights of the peasants.

AWP peasant secretary Hassan Askari highlighted how land reforms in East Pakistan were more rigorously pushed through than in West Pakistan. “In East Pakistan land reforms were supported more because most of the land owners there were Hindus. In West Pakistan the land owners however, were not touched.”

“One of the most dynamic revolutionary forces is the kisan,” said AWP Sindh president Bakhshal Thallo, who explained how it was the British who organised and privatised the feudal system in South Asia.

Central secretary general Akhtar Hussain was of the opinion that to make land reforms, or for that matter any sort of reforms successful, the grassroots need to be galvanised and be invested enough to get the reforms implemented. If this is missing, then no amount of reforms will garner much change as there are many examples in Pakistan.

He also spoke about different legal developments the country has witnessed with regards to land reforms.

Prof Tauseef Ahmed Khan criticised how giving ownership of the land to the peasant was not a custom accepted by those in power. “It was for the first time after the revolution in 1917 in the Soviet Union that a state accepted that the land belongs to the peasant and eliminated the feudal system.”

He explained that it was when the communist party was established in the subcontinent that the idea that the peasant who works on a piece of land should own it too came to the fore. However, in his opinion the political parties led down this cause. Even in Pakistan this trend subsisted. “It was the Left politics that created a sense of awareness among the kisan about his rights. And till the farmer does not get his land, poverty will never end from this country.”

https://www.dawn.com/news/1347188/till-the-farmer-gets-his-land-poverty-will-not-end

The Day of the Landless March 29,2017

Posted on by

Press Release:

The Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity in collaboration with the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC), Pesticide Action Network (PAN AP) and other Asian organizations marked the Day of the Landless under the theme “Fight for Land! Fight for Life! Intensifying the Struggle against the Global Land Grabbing!” The Day of the Landless acknowledges and registers the struggles of farmers across the world that have been forcefully evicted from their land, even though they and their ancestors have lived on these lands for many generations. A number of countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Philippines, and Sri Lanka held various events to mark the day.

Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek and Roots for Equity lodged their protest on the Day of the Landless by holding a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club, Peshawar, and a protest in front of the Ghotki Press Club, Ghotki, Sindh.

Altaf Hussain, PKMT National Coordinator spoke against pro-investment policies that were being promoted to implement various development projects, and economic zones including the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that were leading to increasing cases of land grab, including those happening in Hattar, Haripur. He pointed out that farmers, who were already facing hardship due to ongoing operations against fundamentalism, were further pushed toward loss of livelihood, hunger and impoverishment due to land grab made for the Northern Bypass, Peshawar and Hattar Economic Zone. PKMT’s Khyber Pakhtunkwa (KPK) Provincial Coordinator, Fayaz Ahmed, rejected the provincial government’s notification for acquiring 1,000 acres agricultural land in Hattar, Haripur. He pointed out that a previous land grab in 2008 by the provincial government of about 3400 canal (435 acres) of land – a highly exploitative measure – had also forced farmers to sell their land for which they received negligible compensation. Once more, in the name of development, farmers are being evicted from their land, which will lead to their deprivation, leading to not only increase in hunger and poverty in the province but also have negative impact on national agriculture economy and food security. Alftaf Hussain pointed out that land is farmers’ right, and now farmers will not allow themselves to be evicted from land – there is no doubt that the farmers from Hattar and surrounding areas totally reject the government’s notification for further land acquisition.

PKMT National Coordinator Altaf Hussain along with Provincial Coordinator Fayaz Ahmed during a Press Conference on Day of the Landless

PKMT also lead a protest in Ghotki, Sindh, against farmers being evicted from land. The PKMT Sindh Provincial Coordinator, Ali Nawaz Jalbani spoke against the eviction of farmers from Ghotki Seed Farm, Omer Dhoko Farm, and Ruk Farm. addition, Jalbani pointed that farmers have also been evicted from 1,872 acres of Cotton Research Farm where farmers had been living for many decades and regularly paid the government the stipulated share of production. He pointed out that instead of using an adjoining vast area of non-agricultural land, farmers are being evicted for developing residential areas on very fertile agricultural land. Ali Gohar, Ghotki Coordinator, PKMT pointed out that 70.8 percent of households in Sindh were already suffering from malnutrition and poverty from the oppressive exploitative feudal land lords in the province, and to push profit-oriented real estate development projects in the province would intensify hunger and poverty in the province.

Neoliberal policies across the country were the reason for evicting small and landless farmers so that grabbed land would be given to investors and foreign corporations. The profit driven agenda to develop free economic zones, highways and various infrastructure projects will intensify hunger and poverty in the country. PKMT demands that all land grab policies must be stopped immediately; instead equitable land distribution must be carried out among women and men farmers that will be the basis for eradicating not only hunger and poverty but also lead to food sovereignty.

Food Sovereignty our Right!

Released by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)

Urdu Press Release:

The Day of the Landless March 29

PKMT’s Struggle Against Patriarchy and Neoliberal Onslaught!

Posted on by

Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT), International Women’s Alliance (IWA) and Roots for Equity, Pakistan celebrated International Women’s Day in a village named Busti Gharibabad, Lar, Multan. The event was attended by PKMT women members as well others from Tando Mohammad Khan, and Ghotki districts of Sindh and Multan, Punjab.

The event was started with women greeting each other and celebrating their struggle and victories across the many years of struggle. The thrust of the day’s event was to highlight the need for further organizing of agriculture women workers and landless farmers, and working women across all classes in the ongoing struggle against imperialist agriculture policies, as well as the strangle hold of feudal structures, customs that go hand in hand with patriarchy that are devastating women’s lives.

Rural women spoke out against the curtailing of economic rights especially against landlessness of women farmers, forcing them to work at very low wages. An especial focus was on lack of access to education that women, especially young girls had to face due to patriarchal norms. Women also stressed the lack of political rights, especially in decision making in any aspect of their lives. A young woman Nadia from Lar highlighted the constant vigilance that young women faced at the hands of their families and communities, allowing them the ‘freedom’ to go to work but otherwise forcing them to live a ‘prisoner-like’ life where their mobility was severely curtailed. Pathani a young small farmer, spoke on the critical role of access to education for girls and young women, as well as organizing women to resist patriarchy, feudalism and industrial agriculture.

Faiza Shahid, Roots for Equity spoke against neoliberalism – she highlighted “that on one hand modern technology was being used for farming practices but on the other hand women were being forced to carry out back-breaking work on pittance.” Based on Roots for Equity’s ongoing research on agriculture women workers, she elaborated that women have to not only work many extra hours, but were also travelling to far-off sites in search for work. They were exposed to toxic chemicals and pesticides with being provided any occupational health and safety measures. There is no doubt that these pesticides not only impact the health of women and children, including pregnant women but also have extremely adverse environmental impacts.Women farmers stressed their role as seed savers. It was pointed that though women have traditional knowledge of maintaining and preserving nature and the environment but now capitalist science claims their knowledge and technology supersedes centuries old traditional knowledge held by women. It is tragic and extremely hazardous that capitalist science is providing hybrid and genetically-engineered seed that cannot even be used in the next season – and a major cause of not only pauperizing farmers but also environmental pollution.

Azra Talat Sayeed, Chairperson IWA spoke on the rights and responsibilities faced by rural women, especially landless farmers and agricultural women workers to spearhead the struggle against patriarchy, feudalism and neoliberal policies that are encroaching into the political and economic and social domain of women’s lives. The ongoing wars of capitalist aggression have had immense impact on the lives of women, and rural communities. She elaborated the cooperative role of women in Swat, Pakistan and other areas of Khyber Pakhtunkwa (KPK) in looking after families who were forced to migrate from the war zones. She highlighted the power of women that can be used to break the chain of patriarchal norms, values and practices that results in acute discrimination faced by girls and young women. Women’s rights include the right to life, the right to healthy nutritional food, the right to education and health, the right to decent livelihood, the right to land, the right to self-determination, the right to organize against oppressive conditions, and of course the right to collective resistance against triple-pronged forces of capitalism, feudalism and patriarchy. She elaborated that it is in women’s hand to challenge these practices at home and in the community – only then a strong chain of resistance against domestic and economic violence faced by women could be pushed back and dismantled.

PKMT Women presented a theater highlighting feudal exploitation and class and caste and religious discrimination faced by women, and the power of organized women groups to resist oppressive forces.A number of women presented cultural folk songs through out the event to celebrate International Women’s Day, and the role of women in their communities as survivors of oppression.After the event, an exposure visit was arranged for the rural women from Sindh to visit the Roots for Equity trial farm in Multan. Many of these women have also been saving seeds and maintaining in-situ seed banks as to rebut imperialist seed laws that have granted seed rights to commercial breeders. During the visit, women farmers provided their feedback in maintaining the vegetable and wheat seeds that were being grown on the trial farm. The provided their input on the traditional farming practices that were being carried out at the trial farm in managing weeds in wheat fields. Women were especially appreciative of vegetable seed bank as there is less and less practice of growing vegetables for household consumption, and there is an acute lack of local vegetable seeds.

Women farmers were explained the experiment being carried out to test the productivity of traditional wheat varieties under agro-chemical methods as well as traditional methods using green and animal manure. Women farmers commented that such experiments were very important to expose the agro-chemical corporate sector propaganda, which lays claims on very high yield per acre. The exposure visit ended with the women’s long journey back to their homes across the villages of Sindh.

Human rights defender Tep Vanny was convicted

Posted on by

Phnom Penh,Cambodia:

On 23 February 2017, human rights defender Tep Vanny was convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in prison by Phnom Penh Municipal Court for ‘intentional violence with aggravating circumstances’.

Tep Vanny is a land rights activist and human rights defender who works to combat corruption in Cambodia. She played a prominent role in mobilising communities in Boeung Kak Lake to fight against an eviction order agreed between the Government and a private corporation to carry out development plans which would include filling 90% of the lake for domestic and foreign tourists. Tep Vanny is one of the 13 women human rights defenders (the Boeng Kak 13) who were charged and sentenced to 2.5 years imprisonment on 24 May 2012 as a result of their work resisting these development plans.

On 23 February 2017, Tep Vanny was convicted by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for ‘intentional violence with aggravating circumstances’  under Article 218 of the Cambodian Criminal Code and sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment. She was found guilty of assaulting security guards during a protest outside the house of Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2013. Her sentence also includes a fine of five million riels (approximately €1,178), and compensation payments to two members of the Daun Penh para-police; four million riels (approximately €942) to the first plaintiff and five million riels (approximately €1,178) to the second plaintiff. During the trial, no credible evidence was presented to justify the charges brought against Tep Vanny. At 8:30 a.m., around sixty supporters of Tep Vanny gathered outside the court. At 9:30 a.m., seven Makara district para-police violently dispersed about thirty-five women and children who were sitting peacefully outside the court. The women and children were forcibly dragged from the area, resulting in three of the women sustaining injuries, two of whom are from the Boeung Kak Lake community.

Tep Vanny had been in pre-trial detention in Prey Sar prison, Phnom Penh since August 2016. On 22 August 2016, she was charged with ‘intentional violence with aggravating circumstances”, regarding her role in a protest outside the house of Prime Minister Hun Sen where she demanded the release of human rights defender Yorm Bopha in 2013.

Front Line Defenders condemns the conviction of Tep Vanny, and the violent dispersal of the peaceful protestors. Front Line Defenders urges the Cambodian authorities to drop all charges against her as it is believed they are solely motivated by her peaceful and legitimate work in defense of human rights in Cambodia, in particular her struggle against forced eviction in Boeng Kak Lake.

LHC issues notices to federal govt over unconstitutional legislature

Posted on by

The Lahore High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the federal and Punjab governments in writ petitions challenging the Seed (Amendment) Act, 2015 and the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act, 2016.

The petitions, filed by a Multan-based NGO Sojhla for Social Change through environmental lawyer Ahmad Rafay Alam, were presented before Chief Justice Mansoor Ali Shah.

The petitions contend that the Seed (Amendment) Act, 2015, and the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act, 2016, are unconstitutional, violate fundamental rights, and completely ignore farmers’ rights recognised by Pakistan under various international agreements.

The petitioners contend that Pakistan is a signatory to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Convention on Biological Diversity, both of which recognise and protect farmers’ rights.

Farmers’ rights are traditional rights farmers have on the seeds or the propagating material of plant varieties. This right arises out of the important role farmers around the world have been playing for thousands of years by selecting and conserving varieties of different crop plants that are cultivated for food and/or as cash-crops. During the process of selection, conservation and cultivation, farmers have gained extensive knowledge of each variety and provided the world with invaluable genetic resources which are the foundation of all hybrid and genetically modified varieties being introduced in the market under stringent intellectual property rights held by agrochemical corporations.

In addition, this knowledge base of each variety available with farmers is highly valuable to modern scientific improvement. It makes the contribution of farmers to plant genetic diversity as important as the contribution scientists make by developing modern plant varieties.

Farmers’ rights are therefore recognised and protected under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

The Seed (Amendment) Act, 2015, and Plant Breeders’ Rights Act, 2016, prohibit the handling of seed or registered varieties without licences obtained by the federal government and criminalise contraventions thereof.

The petitions filed by Sojlha for Social Change contend such provisions violate the principles of farmer’s rights and that parliament could not legislate on the subject of seeds or plant breeders’ rights as these were provincial subjects after the 18th Amendment, meaning thereby that only provincial assemblies could legislate on the subject.

“When the first opportunity to protect farmer’s rights recognised under an international treaty presented itself, the parliament chose to make a law totally ignoring farmers in preference for seed companies”, said Ahmad Rafay Alam, counsel for Sojlha for Social Change.

A major force behind this petition is the activism undertaken by the leadership of a national small and landless farmers’ platform, the Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT).

Only a few weeks ago, the Lahore High Court issued notices on similar writ petitions filed by Advocate Sheraz Zaka challenging the same two acts.

The court will now hear the connected petitions together on November 17, 2017.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/01/10/lhc-issues-notices-to-federal-govt-over-unconstitutional-legislature/

 

SAVE OUR HOMES! PROTESTERS DECRY LOSS OF LIVELIHOOD DUE TO DAM CONSTRUCTION

Posted on by

The Express Tribune, November 8th, 2016.

KARACHI: The Sindh government and Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company’s (SECMC) plan to construct a dam on agricultural land drove residents of Ghorani village in Islamkot Tehsil to tears on Monday.

Protesters such as Sita Bai pleaded to the government not to take away their livelihoods during a demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club. She said that she and her fellow villagers had been on the road, fighting for their rights for 17 consecutive days.

Leela Ram and Ravi Shankar, who have been leading the protest in Islamkot and Karachi, told The Express Tribune, “We don’t have any political agenda, rather it’s a question of our children and that our coming generations are going to be affected by this toxic water dam.”

Ram explained that the toxic water from the Thar coalfields will be amassed in the dam being built by the government on private and cultivable landholdings rather than on deserted ones in the same area.

The resident alleged that the proposed 2,700-acre dam will harm their pattern of living and damage the local ecosystem of the area.

According to other protesters, who were shouting slogans, the toxic water dam being constructed in Thar Block-II by SECMC is a grave injustice to the people of the area.

Fifteen villages with a population of 15,000 people will be affected by the construction of the dam, as the area of some of the villages will be submerged once the dam is constructed while others will have to deal with seepage, claimed the villagers. Agricultural land and around 20,000 livestock will also suffer.

They asserted that unlike most villages in Tharparkar desert, theirs is rich, with about 200,000 trees, 20 potable water wells, natural ponds and five historical graveyards – all of which will be affected by the dam.

Junaid Kumar said that their elected representatives do not care about their plight or their future. “This is the first time we celebrated Diwali while protesting on the road,” he lamented.

Another protester, Lakho Bheel, said they do not want to halt construction of the damn but they are demanding the authorities change the location of the dam to an area where there is no cultivatable land or population.

“We are patriotic and must not be considered to be against the development of our area by coal exploration,” maintained Shankar. He added that his people were certainly not against the prosperity of the area.

He demanded the Chief Justice of Pakistan, the chief minister of Sindh and the chairperson of Pakistan Peoples Party to take notice of the dam. Otherwise, he warned, they will continue to protest indefinitely.

The SECMC, a joint venture of the Sindh government and Engro Powergen Limited, plans to produce 3,960 megawatts (MW) of electricity through four 330MW and four 660MW plants.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/1223702/save-homes-protesters-decry-loss-livelihood-due-dam-construction/

Farmers Reject GM Cotton/BT Cotton

Posted on by

Press Release

August 31, 2016

IMG_20160831_142959661

Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity had organized a protest rejecting the promotion of Bt/GM in Punjab, Pakistan in front of Lahore Press Club. Farmers from various districts from Punjab participated in the protest.

Addressing to the protest PKMT secretary Wali Haider told that government is pursuing policies that advocate the production of genetically-engineered cotton; a policy which would ultimately allow hegemonic transnational seed companies such as Monsanto to take control and dictate the total agricultural cotton policy and production in the province, which surely will also spread to other provinces. The Amended Seed Act, 2015 has already been passed that was the first step in aggressively promoting hybrid and GM cotton; the next step is the passing of the Plant Breeders Rights Act, which is already in the final stage of approval in the National Assembly. All of these initiative are there to protect intellectual property rights of the TNCs in result Bt cotton business will have a legal cover.

PKMT firmly reasserts farmers collective right to seed, its free exchange among farmers; it is the farmers who have bred, preserved and passed on the genetic material of seed over many millennia and we will not allow profit-hungry corporations to control the most basic agricultural input – critical for maintaining life on our planet. The agro-chemical mega-corporations that thrive on ‘selling’ lies about higher yields has gained super profits while leaving farmers reeling under multi-pronged crises from suicidal debt, to ever-increasing cost of production, pests and super bugs infestation, falling yields, and destroyed lands and lives. Bt-cotton cultivation is a diabolical attack that will replace/reduce wheat production, the most critical food crop that ensures food security of the small and landless farmers.

According to PKMT National Coordinator Raja Mujeeb, Bt-cotton was initially illegally imported to Pakistan, has time and again wrecked havoc in the cotton fields of the country – last year’s very low cotton yields is testament. According to a research study by International Research on Cancer, Glysophate can probably cause cancer in human. This chemical is used extensively in Monsanto’s herbicide “Round-up Ready.”

PKMT Punjab coordinator, Zahoor Joya emphases that GM technology is being resisted by a vast number of countries across the World, including in very advanced countries such as France and Germany; in such an environment, where Pakistan does not have enough expertise to evaluate this technology, promotion of GM crops can result in many disasters impacting our environment, biodiversity, health and food security. The certified Monsanto seeds in India have already faced a failure creating havoc in the lives of farmers there. In this scenario, the Government must step back and put its efforts in promoting agroecological practices in the production of cotton which would yield high quality cotton. This has a vast market abroad and in the country and would ensure not only a livelihood for farmers but improve the health of the people and our agricultural land.

PKMT demands that instead of promoting TNCs interest and GM crops, the government must put a moratorium on GM technology so that national genetic resources, environment, biodiversity and most importantly right to seed for farmers can be protected.

Released by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)

Urdu Press Release

BT Cotton Press Release Lahore 31-08-2016 copy

BT Cotton Dawn

BT Cotton Jurat News copy BT Cotton Pakistan Newspdf copy

Hungarians Just Destroyed All Monsanto GMO Corn Fields

Posted on by

hungarians-just-destroyed-all-monsanto-gmo-corn-fields

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000’s of acres of corn found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar.

Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stance against GM ingredients, Peru has also passed a 10 year ban on GM foods.

“Almost 1000 acres of maize found to have been planted with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary, deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said.

The GMO corn has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread, he added.

Unlike several other EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary. The inspections will continue despite the fact that traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said.

a-hungarian-farmer-explains-how-they-defeated-monsanto-we-burned-the-gmo-crops-and

During the invesigation, controllers have found Monsanto products among the seeds planted.

The free movement of goods within the EU means that authorities will not investigate how the seeds arrived in Hungary, but they will check where the goods can be found, Bognar said. Regional public radio reported that the two biggest international seed producing companies are affected in the matter and GMO seeds could have been sown on up to the thousands of hectares in the country.

“Most of the local farmers have complained since they just discovered they were using GMO seeds.” said globalresearch.ca

As of May 2015, Hungary had not responded to the new EU legislation making GMOs legal in all countries unless they specifically opt out. Germany looks like they may opt out. Scotland has opted out within the UK.

GMO seeds are not considered worrisome and dangerous simply because they are modified, but it is that they are modified to handle massive doses of glyphosate (Roundup), and not die.  They are made to take baths in the chemical herbicide that is so dangerous for human consumption, and it is the fear that the buildup of glyphosate within crops is a potential cause for the recent rapid increase in autism, cancers, and other long-term developing illnesses.  The company Monsanto has been so aggressive legally to cover up any public ill, believed to be hushing farmers, buying off segments of the government and paying off scientists in the U.S. that it is hard for anyone to know what logistical data has been soured, and what truths to believe.  It has become easier for countries like Hungary to plow under the crop than to try to disseminate between what is fact and what is farse with Monsanto’s disastrous reputation and communication failures.

There is also the factor that when Monsanto seeds are found to be present on land, they fight for ownership of those seeds, and consider them as patent infringement, theft, or whatever you want to call it.  Rather than fight the giant in court every time their seeds blow into a field, it’s easier to wipe them off the map.

Source: www.offgridquest.com | Original Post Date: August 30, 2015

Plants Breeders Right Bill: Farmer Shackling Law

Posted on by

Press Release

IMG-20160812-WA0008

During the press conference PKMT national coordinator Raja Mujeeb, provincial coordinator sindh Ali Nawaz Jalbani, national core group member Hakim Gul and district coordinator ghotki Ali Gohar speaking to the media.

August 12, 2016

The Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research (NFS&R) on August 9, 2016 approved the ‘Plant Breeders Bill 2016’ which had earlier in the year already been approved by the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Division; the draft bill will be now be presented before the National Assembly for approval.

Implementation of the Plant Breeders Rights Bill, like the Amended Seed Act, 2015 is dictated by the World Trade Organization (WTO) under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual property rights (TRIPS) Agreement.  The TRIPs agreement makes it mandatory for the government to provide intellectual property rights (IPRs) on new varieties of plants and seeds. In essence, the Plant Breeders Right’s Act provides monopolistic control to IPR holders of the new varieties of plants or seed prohibiting their use and sale to all others without permission.

The Plant Breeders Act’s is delivered through an ‘effective’ sui generis system or through patents or a combination of both and thus provides mechanisms for plant variety owner to seek IPRs over their plant varieties in each country where they want commercial use of the variety.

The Plant Breeder Right Act basically takes away a centuries old right of farmers to saving and exchanging seed. With gigantic seed corporations such as Monsanto and Syngenta holding intellectual property rights over seeds, the country will on one hand, face serious food insecurity and on the other, loose its sovereignty allowing transnational corporations to dictate food and agricultural production in the country. The royalties paid for IPRs will result in massive seed prices, and farmers already reeling under the steeply rising production costs will face further impoverishment. There is no doubt that the approval of this Bill is equivalent to pushing farmers out of the agricultural sector, reducing them to the status of beggars, a life of misery and humiliation.

Genetically modified seeds (GMOs) are based on genetic engineering (GE) of living organisms including seed and animals and is against evolution of life in nature; the commodification of nature, environmental pollution and further destruction of biodiversity through GMOs is a threat to the entire humanity and goes far beyond ethical dictates of society. It is due to the above reasons and potential health risks associated to GMOs that many countries across the globe have banned GM seed and crops.

Some members of the Standing Committee on NFS&R have shown strong reservations against the bill. According to them, the while the Bio Safety Committee under the Ministry of Climate Change has been given the responsibility for issuing certification on GMOs but lacks expertise on this matter. Pakistan has not undertaken any research and analysis on GE crops and their impacts, which is absolutely against international law on this issue.

Based on the above, Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek, an alliance of small and landless farmers and Roots for Equity strongly reject the Plant Breeders Rights Bill demanding first, a complete elimination of the role of foreign seed companies in agricultural production and second, any further decision making in this context to be based on inclusion and decision making role of farmers’ organizations.

Released by Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)

Urdu Press Release

Plant Breeder Right Act 12 aug 16 copy