7/27/2019 Keep Genetically Modified Bananas Out of India

1/3

Keep Genetically Modified Bananas Outof India

Dr.S ESWARA REDDY

What do you think about the idea of allowingcorporations and wealthy individuals to "own" lifethrough patents and intellectual property? We thinkthat it's wrong and very dangerous to allow people inpower to control our food freedom. We are alsoagainst them tinkering with nature's complex

evolution over millennia. They claim that their trivialyet destructive acts of gene manipulation can "create"life, "create" food, "create" nutrition.Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) haven't facedlong-term testing, have the potential to cause humanhealth problems and could devastate an ecologicalbalance that nature took millions of to create. By

pushing GMOs, scientists and corporations put us allat risk with a monoculture which disease can easilywipe out and cause large-scale famine.

Billionaire Bill Gates and Australian scientist JamesDale are pushing for unnatural genetically modified(GMO) bananas and have started a "creation myth" byclaiming their GMO bananas are an "innovation" to

save Indian women from childbirth deaths due to irondeficiency anemia.

We launched this campaign to fight one leader, IndiaPrime Minister Manmohan Singh, one rich man, Bill

7/27/2019 Keep Genetically Modified Bananas Out of India

2/3

Gates, financing one Australian scientist, James Dale,who knows one crop, the banana, from imposinginefficient and hazardous GMO bananas on millions of

people in India and Uganda who have grown hundredsof banana varieties over thousands of years. "Just asMonsanto controls our cotton seed supply throughIPRs adding a toxic gene to cotton, Dale and MNCswill start owning our banana through patents linked togenetic engineering," says Dr Vandana Shiva ofNavdanya.

Bill Gates also stands to make money off GMOsthrough his ownership of 500,000 shares (worth morethan $20 million) of Monsanto stock.Just as Bt cotton has taken over 95% of cotton inIndia despite having failed to increase yields orcontrol pests, GMO bananas will take over anddestroy our rich biodiversity, even though they will fail

to remove iron deficiency.

Their real objective is to get access to our richbiodiversity through "biopiracy" and control bananaproduction through patents in the country with thehighest production and consumption of bananas.Scientists like Dale already hold many patents onbanana transformation.

Just as Monsanto controls India's cottonseed supplyby adding a toxic gene to cotton, Dale and MNC's willstart owning bananas through patents linked togenetic engineering. In fact that seems to be the main

7/27/2019 Keep Genetically Modified Bananas Out of India

3/3

aim of the GMO banana project. There is no need forintroducing genetically engineered bananas in India.Please join the campaign to keep GMO bananas out of India and out ourfood supply.

Campaign Supporters:

Navdanya ,Mahila Anna Swaraj ,Diverse Women forDiversity ,Initiative for Health & Equity in Society ,Guild ofServices ,CISSA ,Azadi Bachao ,ndolan Appiko ,Save Honey BeesCampaign,Gene Ethics Australia

12TH

JANUARY 2013