Keep Genetically Modified Bananas Out of India

Dr.S ESWARA REDDY

What do you think about the idea of allowing corporations and wealthy individuals to "own" life through patents and intellectual property? We think that it's wrong and very dangerous to allow people in power to control our food freedom. We are also against them tinkering with nature's complex evolution over millennia. They claim that their trivial yet destructive acts of gene manipulation can "create" life, "create" food, "create" nutrition. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) haven't faced long-term testing, have the potential to cause human health problems and could devastate an ecological balance that nature took millions of to create. By pushing GMOs, scientists and corporations put us all at risk with a monoculture which disease can easily wipe out and cause large-scale famine. Billionaire Bill Gates and Australian scientist James Dale are pushing for unnatural genetically modified (GMO) bananas and have started a "creation myth" by claiming their GMO bananas are an "innovation" to save Indian women from childbirth deaths due to iron deficiency anemia. We launched this campaign to fight one leader, India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, one rich man, Bill

Gates, financing one Australian scientist, James Dale, who knows one crop, the banana, from imposing inefficient and hazardous GMO bananas on millions of people in India and Uganda who have grown hundreds of banana varieties over thousands of years. "Just as Monsanto controls our cotton seed supply through IPRs adding a toxic gene to cotton, Dale and MNCs will start owning our banana through patents linked to genetic engineering," says Dr Vandana Shiva of Navdanya. Bill Gates also stands to make money off GMOs through his ownership of 500,000 shares (worth more than $20 million) of Monsanto stock. Just as Bt cotton has taken over 95% of cotton in India despite having failed to increase yields or control pests, GMO bananas will take over and destroy our rich biodiversity, even though they will fail to remove iron deficiency. Their real objective is to get access to our rich biodiversity through "biopiracy" and control banana production through patents in the country with the highest production and consumption of bananas. Scientists like Dale already hold many patents on banana transformation. Just as Monsanto controls India's cottonseed supply by adding a toxic gene to cotton, Dale and MNC's will start owning bananas through patents linked to genetic engineering. In fact that seems to be the main

aim of the GMO banana project. There is no need for introducing genetically engineered bananas in India.
Please join the campaign to keep GMO bananas out of India and out our food supply. Campaign Supporters:

Navdanya ,Mahila Anna Swaraj ,Diverse Women for

Diversity ,Initiative for Health & Equity in Society ,Guild of Services ,CISSA ,Azadi Bachao ,ndolan Appiko ,Save Honey Bees Campaign,Gene Ethics Australia
12TH JANUARY 2013