Rice at Risk

50 Years is Enough!

Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP) has a dedicated Save Our Rice Campaign. In 2007, it spearheaded the Week of Rice Action (WORA), which garnered over a million signatures for The People’s Statement on Saving the Rice of Asia.

WORA 2008 took place the following year with the theme “No to GE Rice in Asia”. It was held across 13 countries in Asia to resist the incursion of GE rice into Asia, and to promote biodiversity-based ecological agriculture and the preservation of traditional rice varieties. Various activities were implemented and participation came from all sectors of society especially small rice farmers. WORA 2008 paved the way for the declaration of GE-free zones and secured strong commitments from policy-makers to protect local lands from GE Rice.

PAN AP also brought in Dr. Michael Hansen, geneticist from Consumers Union, New York, to speak at six locations—Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Orissa, West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in India. The audience included local scientists, academicians, research institutions, policy-makers, CSOs and the public. Parliamentarians attended his talks in a number of localities and some are using his presentation/information to lobby against GE rice in their local contexts.

While there were gains from WORA, PAN AP and its partner organisations committed to a more extensive campaign that was launched in April 2009. Dubbed as the Year of Rice Action (YORA), these organisations, together with other local people’s movements, are campaigning through festivals, training, exhibitions and protest actions to assert the theme: RICE FOR LIFE AND LIVELIHOOD.

“The campaign will culminate on 4th April 2010 in the Philippines, where IRRI is based, on its 50th anniversary, with the call ‘50 Years of IRRI is Enough!’ The people are calling for the closure of IRRI because of the irreparable damage it has caused to the food/rice sovereignty of Asia by replacing the ecological, cultural and sustainable system of rice cultivation of old with its Green-Revolution (corporate) model of rice production. As a result, most of our traditional local rice varieties have been lost, our rice lands have been poisoned and degraded by chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and our small rice farmers have been driven into worsening poverty. Now, IRRI is promoting a gene revolution, which will even be more disastrous,” says Clare Westwood, Coordinator of PAN AP’s Save Our Rice Campaign.

IRRI has also formed alliances/partnerships with private seed corporations, which facilitate their access to hundreds of thousands of rice accessions it holds in its seed bank, supposedly in trust for the countries and farmers it purports to serve. Yet it has promoted the propagation of high-input, hybrid and genetically engineered seeds—all facilitating agri-business—at the expense of native local varieties and small rice farmers.

A statement endorsed by about 100 people’s organisations in the region has been declared, calling for IRRI to return the seeds it has collected from farmers and countries. Indeed, Asia has had more than enough of IRRI and its so-called (old or new) Green Revolution. It is high time IRRI closed for good and gave back the farmers and countries their rice seeds. The best seed conservation is on-farm by the farmers themselves, not in icy seed banks owned or funded by profit-motivated seed corporations and the research institutions that support them.

(Note: To sign on to the statement, visit: panap.net/irrclosure)

Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP) is one of five regional centres of PAN, a global network which aims to eliminate the harm caused by pesticides and promote biodiversity-based ecological agriculture. It is committed to the empowerment of people especially women, agricultural workers, peasants and indigenous farmers. The Save Our Rice Campaign was launched in 2003 by PAN AP with its network partners in Asia in recognition of the critical role of rice, the world’s most important and political crop being the staple food of half its population. The foundation of the Campaign is the “Five Pillars of Rice Wisdom”: (1) Rice Culture, (2) Community Wisdom, (3) Biodiversity-based Ecological Agriculture, (4) Safe Food and (5) Food Sovereignty. The Campaign is dedicated to saving traditional local rice, small rice farmers, rice lands and the rice heritage of Asia through defending and advancing the cultural and food sovereignty of the grassroots and opposing the powerful threats to rice.(Bulatlat.com)