by GRAIN
Welcome to the new Seedling! Twenty years is a long lifetime for an NGO publication – and we decided to celebrate the anniversary by giving our small quarterly a facelift. We hope you like it.
The first Seedling we have on file is dated June 1982. It was two pages long, carbon copied, hard to read, printed on flimsy paper to save on mailing costs, and mailed to the two dozen or so seed campaigners that existed in the world in those days. That particular issue talks about the debates in several industrialised countries then on whether Plant Variety Protection (PVP) laws should be allowed (see box on p). It notes with concern that multinational companies are greedily buying up seed houses and that, together, the ten biggest corporations already control $US 2,000 million in global seed sales. It features a news piece about a bunch of consultants getting together in FAO to discuss the elements of a legally binding seed treaty – a convention to govern access to genetic resources.
Sound familiar? Now – twenty years later – concern over PVP legislation continues, as its negative impact on plant breeding and sustainable agriculture becomes increasingly clear. But is also being overshadowed by the outright patenting of life forms, which is an increasingly acceptable practice, especially in industrialised countries. Today, virtually all independent plant breeding has disappeared, and the world's two biggest seed companies each command close to $US 2,000 million in seed sales. And last year – almost 20 years after the first talks about an international seed treaty – one was finally agreed upon by the UN Organisation for Food and Agriculture (FAO). Although it was not discussed in that first Seedling, another sobering reality is that one of the most serious threats to global food security predicted twenty years ago has recently been realised. Genetically modified crops have been found contaminating the heart of the centres of diversity – thereby threatening the foundations of agriculture.
The world of biodiversity has both changed a lot and soberingly little during the twenty years that Seedling has been in production. When GRAIN was founded, there were precious few NGOs, governments – or indeed any other institutions – aware of or involved in the discussion on control, loss and the management of biodiversity. But since then, international concern over biodiversity management has moved from virtually non-existent to centre stage of the political agenda.
While twenty years ago it was hard to find a policy maker interested in this issue, now it is difficult to find an environment or development agency that does not have biodiversity on its list of priorities. But, of course, the increased attention to biodiversity-related issues does not necessarily translate into dealing with the core of the problem. The reality is that, despite the many international biodiversity-related agreements drawn up in the past decade, we are now moving faster towards the destruction of biodiversity and our planet than ever before.
Over that period, GRAIN itself has also gone through a transformation. GRAIN's
primary role in its early years was to call attention to the root causes behind
the destruction of biodiversity and its impact on the future of agriculture.
It aimed to promote discussion on these issues in national and international
fora, and to serve the few groups that were getting involved with information,
communication and networking support. While many of these basic functions are
still part of our work, we are now moving beyond this “small world”
way of functioning and are expanding our horizons. From a much needed awareness-raising
function in the early days, we have moved on to other roles such as specialised
analysis, strategic support and capacity-building. From a highly Europe-oriented
focus and platform, we have been able to become more active in different regions
of the South through the decentralisation and regionalisation of our still small
organisation.
Through these processes, GRAIN is trying to better account for local realities,
and thereby improve our ability to support national and local organisations
in a relevant way. But it also inevitably changes the way we look at the international
debates, which until the 1990s were quite devoid of grassroots perspectives.
While GRAIN has always had a foothold in international policy debates over genetic
resources and will continue to play a role there, we are quite aware of the
feeling a lot of people have about these processes getting us nowhere. IPR laws
and corporate technologies keep spreading, while the space for farmers'
and community rights keeps getting further trampled underfoot. Unless we keep
fighting at all levels – local, national, international – the damaging
trends will continue. Precisely by linking those different levels, and showing
that real alternatives do exist to the current push from industry for uniformity,
we will be able to promote biodiversity-based agriculture.
Anniversary reflections
We hope that the new Seedling reflects some of the changes we have been going through at GRAIN. This anniversary issue carries an article on the international workshop that marked the end of the Growing Diversity project. This was the culmination of a two and a half year effort to support and document an impressive variety of experiences from farmers, hunters and fishermen who are rescuing, nurturing and working with biodiversity at the local level. It is a celebration of diversity and an example of how many groups are moving beyond pointing to the problem and are working hard locally to develop real alternatives. The Growing Diversity experience demonstrates that by linking, exchanging, and learning from such experience we are beginning to form a formidable force that can no longer be ignored at any level.
But an anniversary is also a moment of critical assessment. We are very happy to have contributions in this special issue from two very special people. Erna Bennett and Camila Montecinos who were both working on the “seeds issue” long before GRAIN even existed. Back in the 1970s, Erna – working then at FAO in Rome – forced people to understand that governments need to take action to combat the erosion of genetic resources and stop the increasing control over them in the hands of corporations. In the 1980s, Camila – working with farmers in Chile – showed to many of us how farmer-created biodiversity is not only more sustainable, but also a more productive way of producing food for all. Both of them, writing here in their personal capacities, contribute critical and provocative reflections about our intentions and efforts over the past decades. We hope that these articles will contribute to a broad and stimulating discussion of where we stand with the genetic resources movement and where we should be heading. Because this is what Seedling is all about.
Reference for this article: GRAIN, 2002, Editorial - 20 years of Seedling, Seedling, July 2002, GRAIN Publications
Website link: www.grain.org/seedling/seed-02-07-1-en.cfm
What is Seedling? Seedling is the quarterly magazine of GRAIN. It provides thought-provoking articles on all aspects of GRAIN’s work and more. To receive Seedling in paper or electronic format (on a CD Rom), or to inform us of a change of address, please contact GRAIN at the address below.