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Navdanya logo represents unity of seed saving and plant breeding Sustaining agrobiodiversity CONSERVATION WORKS BEST AS LIVED EXPERIENCE Devon G. Peña | Seattle, WA |March 31, 2014 The struggle over the control of seed stocks did not start with the advent of modern agriculture at mid-20 th C. The Romans built granaries from rough-hewn granite and guarded their wheat, rye, barley, and seed stores for a reason ( Rickman 1971 ). The Colhua Mexica raided the seed dispensaries of Azcapotzalco after burning the codices in the libraries of the tyrant Maxtla when they first achieved independence from their Tecpanec oppressors in a revolt led by Tlacaélel ( León-Portillo 1963 [1990] ). Today, a handful of global biotechnology corporations and their philantrocapitalist allies are seeking an oligopolistic level of global control over seed stocks. This is once again pushing the frontiers of the struggle over seed into an extraordinary period of conflict that will redefine the nature of our collec...

Poster credit of David Icke Moderator’s Note: We have our fill of scientists from corporate America who insinuate themselves into governmental positions, many with considerable decision making authority. According to my research, there are more than two-dozen former Monsanto, Dow, and Syngenta scientists currently serving inside the US government with most of these attached to the FDA and the USDA (including especially APHIS and ARS). The regulatory agency-industry merry-go-round is the mark of a neoliberal regime where the regulated are also the regulators. I always thought of this as a uniquely American form of systemic corruption. Turns out that EU and European countries have the same exact problem. In this guest post, our colleague and anti-GMO activist, Brian Johns, examines recent words and actions by Anne Glover, the EU’s “Chief Scientist” who has been promoting transgenic food as safe and dismissing the growing evidence that suggests otherwise. Her relationship with the biotec...

Agricultural scientists ‘discover’ diversity-resilience link? AS TRANSGENIC TREADMILLS WEAR OUT, AGROECOLOGY LOOMS ON HORIZON Devon G. Peña | Seattle, WA | March 19, 2014 Even with biotech crops, farmers still need to make use of age­old practices such as crop rotation to fight insect pests. That’s the lesson to be drawn from the latest discovery of resistance to the pest-fighting toxins added to maize — also known as corn. - Brian Owens, Nature, March 17, 2014 The March 17 edition of Nature includes a review of recent research on rootworm resistance to transgenic corn (Gassmann et al 2014). The author of the Nature review Brian Owens opens with the comment that even biotech crop farmers “still need to make use of age-old practices such as crop rotation to fight insect pests.” I am intrigued by the implications of this statement as much as by rootworm resistance to Bt corn because this should open a window to the critique of biotechnology from the vantage point of a likely successor s...