Nov 2002: Canada's Catholic Church Concerned About GMOs

Montreal Gazette

November 30, 2002

Seeds of discontent:

Canada's Catholic Church is concerned that agribusiness is taking control of genetically modified crops at the cost of poor farmers around the world

By HARVEY SHEPHERD

Maxime Laplante is worried about what genetically modified foods may do to you if you eat them - but that's not his No. 1 concern about them.

As the owner of a small mixed farm in Quebec, he is even more concerned about smaller farmers losing control over their own production. He is worried that agribusiness companies will press farmers into using modified seed and other products - and then make it hard for the farmers to stop using them.

Laplante is general secretary of the Union Paysanne, founded last year to promote human-scale farming in Quebec. As such, he is sometimes consulted these days by the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, the international-development arm of Canada's Catholic Church, which is concerned about farming trends internationally. Laplante said in a telephone interview that even farms that concentrate on meat and animal products, like his farm near Lotbiniere, on the St. Lawrence south shore about 50 kilometres west of Quebec City, are vulnerable.

Whether it's a canola farmer prosecuted by a big company because seed from its genetically modified canola turned up on his land - this has happened on the Prairies - or the legal threats that might be posed by a patented goat, for instance, the basic dangers are the same.

Concerns like this have been the focus of a campaign this fall by Development and Peace.

Just over a week ago, as International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew toured Africa on a trade mission, 63 boxes containing 180,000 petition postcards addressed to him were delivered to Parliament Hill.

The petition urged the federal government to take a public stand against the patenting of living organisms, especially seeds.

Development and Peace staff said the patenting issue affects small-scale farmers in the African countries Pettigrew was visiting. They said these farmers' food security is threatened by World Trade Organization negotiations on intellectual-property rights that could allow the patenting of life forms, including the seeds that traditional farmers have developed over generations.

Roger Dubois of Winnipeg, president of Development and Peace, said the concept of international property rights should not apply to matters essential to humankind, like farmers' right to own the seeds they use.

Development and Peace also fears that trade negotiations conducted by some arms of the federal government could undermine efforts by others to support agriculture in developing countries.

The Catholic agency noted that Canada was one of four chief negotiators at a World Trade Organization meeting on international property rights last Monday in Geneva, where the controversial issue of TRIPS – trade-related aspects of intellectual-property rights - was on the agenda. (The other negotiators were Japan, the United States and the European Union.)

Dubois estimated that 1.4 billion people in the world depend on farm-saved seeds for their livelihoods.

"For centuries these seeds have been freely saved, exchanged and sold," he said. "The WTO's TRIPS agreement currently endangers farmers' rights to continue these practices."

He said that patents have already been taken out on five main food crops: rice, wheat, maize, soya and sorghum. Six multinational corporations control almost 70 per cent of these patents.

"Farmers who grow patented crops may have to sign contracts and pay royalties to the patent holder to use their seeds, thus jeopardizing their livelihoods," Dubois said.

Development and Peace has two big campaigns each year to raise money for international development. In leaflets distributed for this year's fall campaign, they argued that millions of families in some of the world's poorest countries survive by saving and exchanging their own seeds.

Development and Peace says farmers are often pressured to stop using traditional seeds by government programs offering free seed or advertisements promising higher yields.

However, seeds from crops grown from these seeds cannot be harvested and replanted without a fee. The crops also require costly pesticides and fertilizers.

Development and Peace cites examples from around the world, including the plans of three big companies to plant genetically modified and patented white corn in South Africa.

White corn is central to the diet of millions of Africans, Development and Peace argues, and the companies' plans have prompted fear that prices will rise, threatening families too poor to pay more.

Yet the South African government is spending millions to promote biotechnology.

"Seeds and all living organisms are our collective heritage," Dubois said. "The Earth belongs to all, and life should never be for sale."

For more information about the campaign, go to www.devp.org