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Por desgracia no hay texto hay traducción December 2007: Global Call Against Patents on Seeds European Patent Office urged to set Limits Munich, December 13, 2007 - A global call against patents on seeds is presented today to the European Patent Office in Munich. The document is signed by 48 farmer's associations from around the world, including the largest organizations of their kind from Argentina, India, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Spain. Development organizations and environmental groups like Misereor, Greenpeace, Swissaid, the Berne Declaration and "No Patents on Life!" also support the call. The undersigned - a total of 170 organizations - are particularly opposed to patents on seeds and livestock. Also taking part in the event is the renowned Vienna artist Ines Doujak.
„It is the largest global alliance of its kind and sends a clear signal to politicians and patent offices around the world", says Mute Schimpf of the catholic development agency Misereor. „The alliance is a hopeful sign of an emerging cooperation between farmers' organizations from developing and industrial countries against the seed monopolies." The cause of the action are patents on plants and animals from conventional breeding (without genetic engineering). In Europe, recent grants include a patent on a breeding procedure for cows and a patent on broccoli - even though European laws explicitly prohibit the patenting of conventional breeding procedures. The European Patent Office (EPA) has declared the broccoli patent a precedent. A decision about the validity of the patent (EP 1069819) may be handed down in the coming months and will affect a slew of similar patent applications. Hundreds of patents on conventionally bred plants and animals are pending, including patents on pig breeding by Monsanto and rice breeding by Syngenta. „We fear an increasing dependency on large corporations that seek to control global food production and agriculture by means of patents, from milk to bread and from baking grains to energy plants", explains patent expert Christoph Then, who advises Greenpeace in these matters. Austrian artist Ines Doujak also supports the protest before the European Patent Office. At last summer's Documenta 12 in Kassel she presented a much-noticed installation called „Siegesgärten" (victory gardens) that criticized the global monopolization of biological diversity. Now the artist has collected the images and texts relating to that work in a new book that also features a motive created especially for the broccoli case. Both will be presented to the press in Munich. The book, along with the global call to action, will be handed to the board members of the EPA, which meets in Munich. „Only at the Documenta did I realize how many people are deeply interested in this issue. It's just unbelievable how politics and corporate interests have closed ranks against the interests of the vast majority of people around the world", says Ines Doujak.
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