Free Seeds

What do traditional farmers have in common with those taking part in the free software movement?

Nothing apparently - while some deal with the millenary agricultural activity, others deal with what our imagination regards as futuristic. However, these characters seem to have similar enemies. They all have monopoly as their main opponent. Hackers from the free software movement fight for the code they develop and use to be free. Farmers, on the other hand, try to protect the species they have long been growing from becoming monopolized by multinational enterprises, which are interested in obtaining a patent on the seeds. In the last case, the code to be protected is a genetic one. Both farmers and programmers are, in reality, fighting for the same cause: free knowledge.

A great step in order for these two movements to cooperate and dialogue more intensively was taken at the 6th International Free Software Forum - the IFS.0. This year, the IFSF offered for the first time a "free seed bank", an initiative aimed at offering seeds free of genetic modification and of patents to indigenous and afro-descendent populations from Rio Grande do Sul. The IFSF was able to offer three tons of seeds, which, according to the organizers of the event, will result in three tons of food supply.

The IFSF had a tradition of getting food donations, which, this year and the last were redirected, to the Federal Program Fome Zero (Zero Hunger). But the IFSF organizers were wiling to promote an action that could help those benefiting from it to guarantee their subsistence in a more autonomous way. Mário Teza, one of the IFSF's organizers and a member of the Brazilian Internet management Committee, states: "We were impressed with the high record of infant mortality of the indigenous population in Dourados (MS) and we wanted to do something to overcome food distribution problems, since that is a very complex issue."

The receiving of food donations for the Fome Zero was not suspended - this year 6 tons of food was collected - but apart from that, money was also collected so seeds could be bought. By the end of the ISFS in June, the total amount of donations reached R$30 thousand - a sum that was obtained from the sponsors´ participation added to the R$3 that was charged for the enrollment of each participant. The next step for the program now is to buy the seeds and, together with its partners - The State Rural Technical Aid Agency of Rio Grande do Sul (Empresa de Assistência Técnica e Extensão Rural do Rio Grande do Sul Emater-RS), the State Secretaries of Agriculture and Work, the Unijuí College, the State Indigenous council and possibly Embrapa (the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation)- to deliver them to the communities.

During the organization process it was defined that it could be more interesting to give support to communities in the State of Rio Grande do Sul than to help the indigenous populations, which had already called the media's attention. "The State suffered a drought and the indigenous and afro-descendent rural population were deeply affected", Teza states. According to him, those who had planted genetically modified crops lost a 100% of it, while the resistance of the area where traditional seeds were planted was of 60%. "Most of the indigenous communities' chiefs in the State were seduced by the genetically modified seed industry and are trying to organize themselves into the agro-business model. Because of the drought, they now do not have seeds to plant the next crop", Teza states.

The aim now its to develop a free production chain, in which farmers are not forced to pay the abusive royalties charged by transnational companies in the transgenic business. Next year the benefited communities will contribute to increase the Free Seed Bank with the result of their efforts. "The monopoly exercised by Microsoft on the software market cannot be reproduced in agriculture", Teza states. "We want the genetic code to be free as well as the computers' source-codes", he adds.

In fact, the market domination strategy used by the transgenic industry is similar to the one used by the software industry. During the ISFS6.0, the president of the National Institute for Information Technology (ITI), Sérgio Amadeu, pointed out that the TRIPs - agreement concerning the intellectual property which regulates the charging of seed patents in the World Trade Organization (WTO) - is defined by some international lawyers as an "attempt to "Microsoft" the World". According to Mario Teza, the industry follows the same logic because it is tolerant to the illegal use of seeds because in the future it will generate profit to them. "Take the soy bean case as an example. In the first year, Monsanto charged a certain amount for each harvest. In the following year the charged amounted doubled. How far will it go?", he states.

Teza believes campaigns against transgenic products are mistaken, so they are not quite understood by the free software community. According to him, it is important to demonstrate transgenic seeds are produced because its manufacturers want to get a patent on the species and, this way, exercise control over farmers and their production. "The important issue to be pointed out is not that it is bad for our health or to the environment - these arguments have not yet been proved valid neither by social movements or the industry. We have to point out that autonomy of production is at stake", he states.

That is why Teza believes that, along with debates, the practical affirmative actions that are characteristic of free software movements should be stimulated. The free software movement appeared as a response to the private appropriation of the software codes. The actors that put the resistance up were programmers that decided to have their own code, their own operational system. Richard Stallman, the founder of the movement, defines the GNU/Linux operational system as "our land in the cyberspace".

Next year, Teza intends to link the Free Seed Bank to debates demonstrating the relation between attempts to liberate computer codes and life codes. This will be a promising debate

Publicado em www.planetaportoalegre.net: 23/06/2005