[Lapg] YOU can help in the global Bio-security struggle.

[R G]

 From the blog of:
Nick Heyming


"One of the main goals of starting the gratitude gardens was to  
empower people around the world to learn about biodiversity and  
participate in protecting it. If you've ever seen Food Inc. or Future  
of Food, you've probably been frustrated at how powerful and  
shortsighted certain huge multinational agribusiness firms are.


Just a little poison on your food.

When I first saw Future of Food, I wanted to go outside and do  
something about it. The way that Monsanto, Dupont, and Cargill  
conduct themselves on the international stage is shameful, and  
downright terrifying. They're trying to force their chemically  
reliant and genetically modified products into sustainable loops  
around the world, and using every dirty trick in the book to do it.


Billing farmers for growing their own seed is standard practice in  
Agribusiness.
Just read Stolen Harvest if you want an inside perspective on their  
shady dealings in Africa, India, and Latin America. In many  
countries, farmers would rather burn their crops than become slaves  
to unscrupulous corporations.


Haitian farmers burning 'aid' that they'd have to pay for next year,  
and the year after that, and the year after that....

So what can you do about it? Well, surprisingly alot. One of the  
things that prevents agribusiness firms from being able to patent a  
seed or technology is something called 'public disclosure'. When I  
first came up with the idea for Gratitude Gardens, where people  
around the world would document and share heirloom and landrace crops  
from their local climate, I was concerned that one of these  
industrial farming companies would abuse the information we gathered  
in the way that they abuse seed banks.

I consulted a trademark and patent lawyer, and was extremely happy to  
hear that by posting these seeds and crops on an internet forum, that  
counts as 'public disclosure'. Companies will be less likely or able  
to patent a seed that has been disclosed, as it would be next to  
impossible to file or defend a challenge to their patent if they  
can't demonstrate that they generated the intellectual property.

The lawyer also suggested having an intellectual property forum on  
the Gratitude Garden website, and offered his services in protecting  
the rights of those who post their content on there. While the  
primary goal of the competition and game of Gratitude Gardens is to  
inspire people to explore their heritage and to cultivate and share  
exciting and delicious crops, its awesome to know that in doing so  
we'll be protecting this valuable genetic diversity from biopiracy.

So if you'd like to participate in this important global effort,  
check out our page at http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/gratitude- 
gardens/ and comment on the reports or donate a few bucks. The money  
will only get taken out of your account if we reach our goal of $3000  
by the end of the month, but this project is so important that I have  
no doubt we'll surpass that goal so we can inspire future generations  
of gardeners and farmers and protect our shared heritage.



Please share this with anyone you know interested in food security!"
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