While momentum against GMOs builds throughout the global North, the Gates Foundation, profit driven multinational corporations like Monsanto, and a number of governments are setting the stage for the widespread adoption of industrial agriculture and the use of GMO seeds in different parts of Africa. As AGRA Watch and its partners are aware, commercial agricultural biotechnology and GMO seeds will have detrimental effects to smallholder famers and biodiversity.
In response to these pressures, an international coalition of NGOs recently called for the parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Cartagena Protocol to implement binding regulations that would stop the spread of genetically engineered seeds. A primary concern for the coalition of NGOs, and the rest of the anti-GMO movement, is transgene flow and its effects on native crop varieties. In affecting the dynamics of wild and native varieties, transgene flow will have detrimental effects on smallholder farmers, who rely on their understanding of these dynamics to sustainably produce healthy and culturally appropriate food.
Learn more about the beginnings of an international call to stop the spread of genetically engineered organisms, and find contact information of activists who can help your organization join in this effort at stop-the-spread-of-trangenes.org.
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