Both seminars were received support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China and the provincial government units of Hubei and Sichuan Provinces.

In both seminars, Florante “Nonoy” Villas, AsiaDHRRA’s LSFM regional program manager shared AsiaDHRRA’s experience in anchoring ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community’s participatory process in drafting the 2011-2015 Framework  Action Plan for Rural Development and Poverty Eradication and AsiaDHRRA’s strategies, models and experiences in implementing the Linking Small Farmers to Markets.

IPRCC is an international anti-poverty organization established jointly by the Chinese Government and the United Nations Development Program and other international organizations in June 2005. IPRCC has committed to make contributions to poverty reduction in the world through the promotion of policy research, experience-sharing, knowledge exchange and South-South Cooperation in the field of poverty reduction and development.

IPRCC was established by the Chinese Government to provide a platform for various professionals and development practitioners from different developing countries to share theoretic studies and policy analysis and explore effective approaches for agricultural growth and rural development. It is one of the 5 new measures to assume China’s international responsibilities announced by China’s president Hu Jintao at the High-Level Meeting on Financing for Development, on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations. On June 22, 2004, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao delivered a keynote speech titled Promote Asian Cooperation in New Century at the Third Foreign Ministers’ Meeting of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue held in Qingdao in which he pointed out that strengthening regional cooperation is not only an important part of China’s new-era foreign policy but also the need of its own development.

Download the PDF here….

Articles included:

• Diversity in international biosafety regulation: MacKenzie, R.
• From risks to rights in southern Africa:  Mohamed Katerere, J.
• Bt cotton: benefits for poor farmers?: Glover, D.
• IPRs, biotechnology and development: Yamin, F.
• Regulating biotechnology: Newell, P.
• Corporate dominance and agricultural biotechnology: Glover, D.
• The Chinese biotechnology experience: Keeley, J.
• Biotechnology for Kenya: Odame, H., Kameri-Mbote, P. and Wafula, D.

NEW York: On behalf of 60 family farmers, seed businesses and organic agricultural organizations, the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) filed suit today against Monsanto Company challenging the chemical giant’s patents on genetically modified seed. The organic plaintiffs were forced to sue preemptively to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement should their crops ever become contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed.

Monsanto has sued farmers in the United States and Canada, in the past, when their patented genetic material has inadvertently contaminated their crops.

Continue reading about why farmers and seed producers launched preemptive strike against Monsanto…

FrankenThursday’s

Quick facts: The GMMosquitoes were genetically engineered to kill off  Aedes aegypti mosquitoes which spread dengue fever. The Bill & Melissa Gates Foundation is funding this project and Malaysia is set to undergo field trials of these frankencritters this year.

read more about the GMO mosquitos at the ScienceMag….

more info here about the GMMosquito project

The results, presented at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Pittsburgh, show that the vast majority of feral canola plants in the state contain artificial genes that make them resistant to herbicides. Researchers also found two plants that contained traits from multiple genetically modified varieties, suggesting that genetically modified plants are breeding in the wild.

continue reading about “escape” of  Genetically Modified Canola from Farm Fields….

“GMWatch is an independent non-profit making organisation founded in 1998. We seek to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the biotech industry and its supporters through our website, our lists, our Spinprofiles portal, LobbyWatch, the BanGMFood campaign and our many other outreach and campaigning activities. GMWatch is co-edited by Jonathan Matthews and Claire Robinson. You can find out more about the history of GMWatch here.”

One of the least-reported tragedies that resulted from globalization and corporatization of agriculture is the farmer suicide story of India – a tragedy comprising several hundred thousand individual tragedies, and possibly the ‘largest wave of suicides in history’. Last month UK Independent carried a report titled “1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India  “, and cited falling water table, crop failure and debt as the reasons. The figure and the reasons are – at best – cruelly watered down versions of hard and sad reality. The actual piece of data is nearer 200,000 and the reasons both global and local.

Magsaysay award winning journalist and author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought, P. Sainath keeps the collective Indian nation’s (and hopefully global) conscience alive by reporting very regularly on the plight of the farmers. As the rural affairs editor of a national newspaper, he bases each of his intricate analysis on hard statistics and highlights the different causes and contrasts that have resulted in the sorry state of affairs (variously called agrarian crisis, rural distress, even Neo-Liberal Terrorism) of these care-takers of the land.

continue reading about How GM Seeds Killed More Indians than World War II….

From Grain:

The looming GM sugar cane invasionOne of the most destructive developments in agriculture over the past two decades has been the boom in soya production in the southern cone of Latin America. The corporations that led that boom are now moving aggressively into sugar cane, focusing on large tracts of land in southern countries where sugar can be produced cheaply. If these developments are not resisted, the impacts are likely to be severe: local food production will be overrun, workers and communities will face displacement and exposure to increased levels of pesticides, and foreign agribusiness will tighten its grip on sugar production. We look at the intersection between the development of genetically modified (GM) sugar cane and transformations in the global sugar industry.

continue reading about The looming GM sugar cane invasion…

The GE rice has been developed by Bayer CropScience AG, a subsidiary company of the German chemical giant Bayer AG. The rice – technical name LL62 – has been genetically-engineered to withstand high doses of glufosinate, sprayed on rice fields by farmers to control a wide range of weeds. The weeds will die, the GE rice will survive.

Any use of the Bayer GE rice will lead to an increased use of the toxic herbicide – undoubtedly boosting sales of Bayer’s glufosinate as a consequence. It will also lead to higher risks for farmers, consumers and the environment. Glufosinate is considered to be so dangerous to humans and the environment that it will soon be banned in Europe in accordance with recently-adopted EU legislation. Currently, Bayer is pushing for legal approval of its GE rice in Brazil, South Africa, the EU, India and the Philippines. In the USA, the Bayer GE rice has already been approved for commercial planting, although farmers in the US are reluctant to plant it. They fear the loss of important markets due to the risks of accidental contamination, and not without reason. Bayer already has a history of causing damages that have been estimated at more than USD 1.2 billion to the global rice industry, when one of its experimental GE rice varieties accidentally entered global rice supplies in 2006. (Greeanpeace)

Download the book Bayer’s Double Trouble here…

Help end Monsanto’s evil FrankenFood Plan! read more about it at the Millions Against Monsanto Campaign

Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Saskatchewan Canada, whose Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto’s genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen from a nearby farm. Monsanto says it doesn’t matter how the contamination took place, and is therefore demanding Schmeiser pay their Technology Fee (the fee farmers must pay to grow Monsanto’s genetically engineered products). According to Schmeiser, “I never had anything to do with Monsanto, outside of buying chemicals. I never signed a contract.

If I would go to St. Louis (Monsanto Headquarters) and contaminate their plots – destroy what they have worked on for 40 years – I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away.”

Read more about Percy’s fight agains the the evil Monsanto….