The World Church Council (Wcc) against the "Terminator technology" plan. In a release broadcast today, reverend Samuel Kobia, secretary general of Wcc, makes an appeal to the churches and the ecumenical partners to do all they can to stop laboratories developing and producing sterile seeds (which produce one crop only), also known as the "Terminator technology" plan, which would "transform life", according to Wcc, "from God’s gift into a commodity". "Preventing farmers from sowing non-sterile seeds will increase economic injustice across the world. This special technology would actually transfer sovereignty over food into the hands of the big corporations and technicians. Today, 1.4 billion people live off non-sterile seeds". The governments had confirmed the suspension of this plan at the Cop8 meeting (the conferences of the parties) at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity of Curitiba, Brazil, but they had eventually had to bend to the pressures of civil society, which wanted them to be banned. In Curitiba, thousands of farmers of the Sem terra and Via campesina movements had protested in order to have the "Terminator technology" plan banned. Now the fight is on a national scale. "Brazil and India says Wcc have already passed laws to prevent the sales of sterile seeds. In Europe and Germany too, the Protestant churches are pushing for this".
