- Final Human Universe episode features Svalbard Global seed Vault.
- GRAIN objects to where Gates Foundation spends its money. Nobody much cares.
- Latest on that UC Davis strawberry breeding programme debacle.
- Yes, bears do shit (apple seeds) in the woods. And some context.
- A conference for the hippy in all of us.
- The dark side of pasture breeding. Super-weed, I am your father!
- World Parks Congress on soon too.
- No access to healthy food? Use your mobile! Watch a video! Grow traditional crops!
- Toyota funds the Millennium Seed Bank.
- ESA supports the ITPGRFA. Speak Up For Seed!
“ESA supports the ITPGRFA”
The other side of the coin is that the European Seed Association does not support the Nagoya Protocol. The ESA is using language like “D-Day for genetic resources in Europe” specifically claiming that EU Regulation to support the Nagoya Protocol “will create an enormous administrative burden” and is so: “ …very widely defined it will also jeopardise the principle of free access to all genetic resources for further breeding, a fundamental principle of plant breeding which is also enshrined in the international UPOV convention…”
Having come out against the Nagoya Protocol the ESA decided to favour the Treaty with some reservations: “But the Treaty has long suffered from a number of shortcomings, e.g. its poor implementation and limitation of its Annex 1 to 64 species, which also hampers its financial situation.”
This misses the point. The Treaty is a dud because it has its origin in the `no patents on plants’ rhetoric, and the unfounded assumption that what somehow turned out to be a very low tax on plant patents alone could fund the Treaty.
Rather than complaining about the extent of Annex 1 crops, the European Seed Association could offer the Treaty a `point-of-sale’ tax of 5% on sales of seed of all varieties covered by the various forms of UPOV.