Terminator Seeds

March 13, 2006 7:24 PM

The 8th Conference of the Parties (COP8) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity begins March 20th. On the agenda? The possible overturning of the 2000 de facto moratorium on genetically modified Terminator Seeds. The US, Australian, New Zealand, and most recently Britain are already on board. Other countries and environmental groups are not so keen, and are pushing to ban terminator.
posted by stray (8 comments total)

They don't have a hymn.
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:27 PM on March 13, 2006

I'm writing one as we speak. How do you feel about D minor?
posted by stray at 7:31 PM on March 13, 2006

D minor is alright, but what about B major?
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:33 PM on March 13, 2006

Monsanto can successfully sue farmers who _don't_ buy their seeds, but have it blown into their fields naturally.

So of _course_ they don't want Terminator varieties. They can't take over all of agriculture otherwise.
posted by Malor at 7:42 PM on March 13, 2006

Terminator, Terminator, Terminator seed
Constricting genetic diversity
Halted by progress of conference
Vision of a world in famine
Beyond all science helping
posted by sourwookie at 7:45 PM on March 13, 2006

freie saat statt tote ernte! it reminds me a bit of food not bombs, but with more hilarious skeleton costumes, and in german.
posted by jann at 1:44 AM on March 14, 2006

Uh, maybe I'm missing something -- and, no, I don't trust Monsanto further than I can spit, but:

Because some stakeholders expressed concerns that this technology might lead to dependence for poor smallholder farmers, Monsanto, an agricultural products company, pledged not to commercialize the technology even if and when is becomes commercially available.

?
posted by docgonzo at 8:32 AM on March 14, 2006

This page on the Ban Terminator site claims that Monsanto is leaving itself quite a bit of wiggle room.
posted by stray at 8:43 AM on March 14, 2006