[03/14/06] La Via Campesina holds a parallel conference to coincide with UN Conferences

Between March 13 and 31, La Via Campesina International will organize a camp called “Land Free of Transgenics‿ to accompany the negotiations of two conferences being held in Curitiba (PR). The camp will be in place in Newton Freire Maia Park, (formerly called Castelo Branco Park), in Quatro Barras (20 km from Curitiba) and around 6,000 small farmers (men and women), mainly from the South and Southeast regions of the country, are expected to gather there.

The official work is divided into two blocks: from March 13 to 17 – the Third Meeting of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosecurity (called “MOP 3‿) and from March 20 to 31, the Conference on Parties to the Convention (called “COP 8‿).

The parallel event will be held because the discussion in the two conferences is directly related to the agricultural project of La Via Campesina. “Depending on what is approved in the conferences, it can go against our agricultural project and can affect the food sovereignty of the world’s farmers. For this reason, these conferences are of great importance for farmers, especially in Brazil‿, states Diorlei dos Santos, a member of Via Campesina Brazil. Besides following what is happening in the conferences, the members of the camp will hold discussions, conferences, and public events. The question of biodiversity will be discussed, as well as the state of agriculture in the world. The farmers will also discuss the La Via Campesina’s proposal for agriculture and the people’s project for agriculture worldwide.

Official Conferences

In the MOP 3, the central topic will be the question of transgenics--specifically about the Cartagena Protocol, which should establish minimal models of security to ensure the identification, packaging, handling, and use of modified live organisms.

The protocol is mainly for the prevention of transgenic contamination and for the risks that it can cause to biodiversity and to humans when consumed. In the Letter, approved in 2000 and which should have been effective beginning in 2003, it was decided that the exporting countries should register whether seeds contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs), a mandate which is not being observed in practice.

The COP 8 has a more extensive agenda, since it discusses everything from agricultural diversity to biodiversity of practically all the world’s ecosystems. The COP meetings are held every two years and is a meeting of great importance that is attended by 187 countries.

One of the main topics is the question of restrictions on the use of “Terminator Technology‿, genetically-modified plants that produce sterile seeds, which prevents their reproduction by farmers. Another topic on the agenda is the question of the international rule on access to and sharing of benefits. The Convention on Biological Diversity proposed regulating access to national knowledge and to the genetic resources belonging to countries, as well as regulating the distribution of the benefits of that knowledge among corporations and the communities .

The social movements, non-governmental organizations, and civil society will not have the right to intervene during the conferences because they do not have voting power. The main action of civil society is outside, in the mobilizations. “We are going to watch the stand of the Brazilian government, which is of total importance for the other countries since positions are made by consensus‿, states Maria Rita Reis.

“We want to make it clear to the world and to the people of Latin America that the topics under discussion are not the thinking of the people, but of the multinationals and of the big corporations that are influencing this agenda. There is a very great deal of discontent about the question of the treatment of the environment and of biodiversity in the world‿, Diorlei stated.