Scientific objection

INDEPENDENT SCIENTIST OBJECTS TO TERMINATOR SEEDS

Terminator technologies serve little benefit to anyone other than corporations who profit from the seed use restriction. Corporations such as Monsanto have backed away from the deployment of terminators for the time being while there has been an explosion in the development of novel use restriction technologies based on startling new discoveries in plant molecular genetics that led to the identification of homeotic genes that govern the pathways leading to cell differentiation. Homeotic genes produce proteins that recognize regulatory genes called MADS-boxes that control genes for formation of reproductive tissue, leaves, branches, etc. That discovery has led to a flood of inventions that use MADS-box factors to control flowering or gamete production to create terminators in trees and in crops. Such techniques frequently use cell suicide toxins to abort formation of gametes or flowers and those toxins provide tangible hazards to those consuming food or feed. From the plethora of patents and patent applications for terminator technologies it seems likely that regulatory agencies will soon be swamped with applications for commercial release of such technologies. Many such technologies may be presented to the public as obfuscations, difficult for the layman or farmer to grasp, they will be, in effect, hidden terminators. It is essential that a clear principle should be established. That principle is that terminators have no place in human agriculture. Their use should be outlawed.

It is worth pointing out that the fundamental research and development of terminator was done by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in a collaboration with Delta and Pineland Corporation. The financial support for the MADS-box family of terminators came from government granting agencies and from the USDA-US forest service. Government research granting agencies and departments fund extensive research on terminator technologies that serve the interests of corporations and not the taxpayers. Government funding of terminator research should be stopped.

Family farmers and the public will both lose from the widespread use of terminator technology. Indigenous farmers will suffer from an inability to tap into crop improvements. In Canada there was a government-funded study promoting the distressing notion that essentially all seeds production be placed in the hands of corporate seed producers. Saving seed, when seeds are not terminated, would be outlawed. Canada may be the first country to impose a draconian system of corporate food production. Unfortunately, Canada may not be the last country to impose the corporate agenda on the public. The World should demand of the United Nations that they at last stand up for the good of the people of the world.