Patents on seed must go: Environmental activist

The theme for the year is 'Women in Defence of Earth' celebrating women who have over the years stood for the rights and have fought for environment.

Releasing the report on seed freedom, Dr Vandana Shiva, founder-director of Navdanya, said, "it is time that the regimes world over understand that intellectual property rights and patents on seeds are damaging the farmers and the farming sector."

Stressing on the need to distinguish between Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) - where genes from one organism is moved into foods to make them insect and pest resistance - and native seeds, Shiva said, "the former needs patenting but not in the case of the latter and the government must not restrict the use of native seeds."

Adding that capitalist forces are out to overtake the farming sector and their claims of yielding productive crops at cost effective rates have been hollow, Vandana pointed to the farmer suicides in the cotton belt Vidarbha region and attributed it to the steep rise in input costs.

Over the next fortnight Navdanya would reach out to regimes world over and demand abolition of patents and rights on seeds.

"We are going to Spain, Rome, Paris, the United Nations, Stuttgart, Turkey and at Cartagena Protocol in Hyderabad," Vandana said.