GRAIN
A new, exciting and long-overdue initiative to help farmers save, use and share their seeds is taking off in Europe. In Paris, France, on 13 November, the Réseau Semences Paysannes of France and Red de Semillas of Spain organised a workshop entitled “Farmer Seeds: rebuilding autonomy in Europe”. The workshop was part of the seminar “GMOs, patents and seed monopolies: resistance and proposed alternatives in Europe” which was part of the European Social Forum.
The main message of the workshop was clear: in the context of growing corporate control over the seed system, relentless pressure on the EU to accept GMOs, and the ongoing disappearance of peasant agriculture, European farmers have to return to farmer seeds. This is the only way that farmers can secure their autonomy and the only way to protect the food system, the environment and rural life from the brutalities of industrial agriculture and corporate agribusiness.
There wasn't time to fully discuss the different ideas for building farmer seed systems that were put on the table but it was important to see that the participants, mostly farmers from France, Italy and Spain, shared a fundamental vision for farmer seeds. All agreed that farmer seeds cannot be commodified and subjected to the criteria and demands of industrial agriculture. They are based on diversity and variability and must be free to evolve according to their local environments and the efforts of farmers. In this vision, there is no room for seed catalogues and monopoly rights that promote uniformity and ‘stability'. Indeed, the European seed catalogue was singled out for its central role in the destruction of farmer seeds. So too were GMOs and intellectual property rights, particularly patents. Participants unanimously rejected patents on living organisms and called for the European moratorium on GMOs to be left in place; both of these positions were subsequently taken up by the larger seminar.
In supporting the moratorium and calling for zero tolerance for GMO contamination in seeds, the workshop took a strong position against those seeking to replace the moratorium with rules for co-existence. Accepting co-existence means opening the floodgates to GMOs and spells the end for organic agriculture.
Another important outcome of the workshop was its expression of solidarity with farmers in Eastern Europe and the South. The need for solidarity was driven home by Avram Fitiu of the Romanian organisation Agroecologica, who reminded the room that 7 million small-scale farmers in Poland and Romania would soon be driven off their lands with their country's looming accession to the EU and that their farms were already deeply contaminated by GMOs.
Participants agreed that they must not pursue strategies that undermine the struggles of peasants in Eastern Europe and the South. Without farmers there can be no farmer seeds!