Gene Campaign
NGO Details :
Name : GENE CAMPAIGN
Chief Functionary : Dr Suman Sahai
Chairman : none
Secretary : Mr Arun Chacko
Treasurer : Mr Ranjan Mishra
Umbrella/Parent Organization : Sonali Mahila Vikas Charitable Trust
First Registration Details :
Unique Id of VO/NGO : DL/2009/0008679
Registered With : Registrar of Societies
Type of NGO : Society
Registration No : s/34545 of 1993
City of Registration : Delhi
State of Registration : Delhi
Date of Registration : 19-07-1993
FCRA Details :
FCRA Registration no. : 231650825
Sector/ Key Issues :
Key Issues : Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries, Agriculture, Art & Culture, Biotechnology, Civic Issues, Disaster Management, Drinking Water, Education & Literacy, Environment & Forests, Food Processing, Health & Family Welfare, Human Rights, Information & Communication Technology, Legal Awareness & Aid, Labour & Employment, Land Resources, Micro Finance (SHGs), Minority Issues, Micro Small & Medium Enterprises, New & Renewable Energy, Nutrition, Panchayati Raj, Right to Information & Advocacy, Rural Development & Poverty Alleviation, Scientific & Industrial Research,
Operational Area-States :
Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarkhand, West Bengal
Details of Achievements :
Major Activities/Achievements : Starting in 1993, its been more then a decade since Gene Campaign, a leading research and advocacy organisation, has been working to empower local communities to retain control over their genetic resources in order to ensure food and livelihood security. Gene Campaign is closely involved in policy making and legislation with respect to biological resources, Gene Campaign has enabled rural and adivasi communities to participate in policies relating to these resources.
Gene Campaign is dedicated to protecting the genetic resources of the Global South and the rights of the farmers of these regions.
In the WTO-TRIPS chapter on Intellectual Property Rights, the industrialized countries of the North have claimed the right to patent plant varieties. In addition, attempts are being made to acquire ownership of plant genetic resources that have been collected from the Global South and stored in international gene banks.
These genetic resources sought to being appropriated and patented by the multinational companies based in industrialized countries, are the rightful property of the farmers of Developing Countries. It
was they who created almost all known races of food and cash crops from wild plants in the forest , through careful observation, breedingand selection over generations. Therefore the move to patent
these varieties or the genes contained in these varieties, amounts to the out and out loot of the work of rural and tribal communities.
If the rigorous industrial patenting claimed by the North is allowed, then a plant variety B bred by transferring a gene from plant A to plant B, will become the exclusive property of the multinational
that holds the patent. Not only that, protection is being claimed for all successive generations of the patented variety, that is also its seed.
The consequences of patenting living resources like plant varieties and the genes that give them commercially desirable traits, will be catastrophic for India and other countries of the Global South. It will result in foreign monopoly control of vital sectors and higher prices for food, medicines and all products derived from biotechnology.
It will mean that descendants of those farmers who created food crops will have to pay hefty royalties to buy seeds of rice and wheat that their ancestors brought into existence.
IT WILL MEAN THAT FARMERS WILL HAVE TO BUY FRESH SEED FOR EVERY CROP SINCE THEY WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO SAVE SEED OUT OF THEIR HARVEST.
It will mean that our scientists and plant breeders will be denied access to the gene pool of patented varieties, unless they pay expensive license fees, to continue the work of breeding new varieties suited to local conditions. Breeding work will become the exclusive monopoly of the large companies holding the patent, not of our scientists.
Once the hands of our farmers and scientists are tied in this fashion, the very basis of our agriculture will
Shift under the control of foreign corporations, committing us to perpetual bondage.
GENE CAMPAIGN WILL FIGHT THE MOVE TO STEAL THE GENES CONTAINED IN THE AGRICULTURAL STOCKS THAT OUR FARMERS HAVE BROUGHT INTO EXISTENCE.
Gene Campaign will lobby for recognition of the fact that Intellectual property protection claimed in multinational seed companies is dishonest because the varieties sought to be patented are bred using genes from the stocks built up by farmers in the developing world and this gene use has not been paid for.
If genes are a common heritage as has been maintained so far, then any variety bred using these genes must be freely available and cannot be patented.
GENE CAMPAIGN PROTESTS against the attempt being made by a handful of multinationals to steal through threat and coercion, the priceless heritage that generations of developing country farmers have given the world.
These farmers through a continuous process of observation, selection and breeding, have given the world a genetics stock that is capable of feeding 5 billion people, with ample food to spare.
Today these multinational corporations wielding inordinate power on their governments are seeking to appropriate for themselves what the farmers of Developing Countries have taken thousands of years to create.
They wish to take the genetic resources that these farmers have developed, and deny them the right in perpetuity, to use these genes, to develop crop variants suited to local farming conditions and systems.
They wish in short to stem the very process that has given the world its stable and highly diversified agriculture.
They are attempting to enslave the farmer to scientists in remote laboratories who have no stake in the success or failure of innovative adaptive agriculture.
We protest against farmers being marginalized from the innovation process even though they provide the raw materials like land races and farming techniques like cropping and pest management.
Gene Campaign believes that farmers must be treated as partners in research, not as passive consumers of external technologies. They must have a decisive role to play in determining the direction of agricultural research of which they are the only consumers.
Gene Campaign believes in low technology farming systems working on the basis of biological diversity instead of agro chemical based mono culture agriculture.
Gene Campaign resolves to fight against conditions that will result in Indian scientists conducting research for multinationals that will patent the results of their efforts and sell these back to India.
Gene Campaign resolves to fight these efforts which will stifle agricultural research in India because access to genetic material will be denied by patents.
Gene Campaign resolves to work for the recognition of the rights of farmers over plant genetic resources that they have created, and their contribution to the conservation and improvement of these resources.
Gene Campaign resolves to fight for the rights of the farmers to innovate and control local genetic resources so that they can continue to improve and manage their own production systems, as they have done for hundreds of years.
GENE CAMPAIGN RESOLVES TO FIGHT AGAINST THE TREND TO TURN AGRICULTURE INTO A HIGH- TECH, CAPITAL INTENSIVE INDUSTRY.
Gene Campaign demands that farmers be made the cornerstone of the effort to halt the worldwide loss of genetic diversity and be actively included in conserving and improving crop varieties for local farming systems.
Gene Campaign demands that farmers and local communities have a stronger role to play in management of the genetic resources, breeding new varieties and seed production.
Gene Campaign urges its government not to sign away the freedom and livelihood of our farmers and not to allow the plunder of our most valuable resources.
Gene Campaign is a group of scientists, lawyers, economists, environmentalists, journalists, farmers’ representatives and activists, dedicated to the protection of the Genetic Resources and the rights of people in the Global South to use these resources without hindrance, whether it is in research, industry or agriculture.
Contact Details :
Address : Gene Campaign, New Delhi (Regd. Office) Gene Campaign J-235/A, Lane W-15C, Sainik Farms New Delhi-110062 India [codepeople-post-map]
City : New Delhi
State : Delhi
Telephone : 011-29556248
E-mail : mail@genecampaign.org
Website Url : http://www.genecampaign.org
Fax : 011-29555961