To accept the patenting of seeds is in fact to accept the creation of an absurd privilege for a handful of transnational companies. This would be to say that they need protection from the competition of Nature which reproduces, free of charge, the seeds in the farmer's field. Furthermore, they are aiding and abetting something that is purely and simply a planetary hold up on genetic resources. As for public research, it is investing massively in GMOs, often in partnership with the firms that market them. We are also taking part in this denaturing of agriculture worldwide by dumping our subsidized agricultural surpluses on the countries of the South, thus ruining their farmers.
Hunger increases in parallel.
These developments with their irreversible impact on the future of mankind must not be left to market forces. That is why, over and above the legal considerations , we, the signatories of this text, call for reflection on the need for society to have a real control over the applications to which scientific discoveries are put. By fully assuming its responsability, fundamental research will have a crucial role to play. That Europe support the African countries group proposal at the WTO for a revision of article 27.3b of the intellectual property agreement. The reorientation of public research and of the European common agricultural policy towards family farming that respects the environment, the quality of food and generates rural employment as well as the re-examination of the regulations that threaten the very existence of this type of agriculture.