[P2P-F] Fwd: Vandana Shiva is the new co-chair of the NSP! And a request from her...

Wed Jan 7 06:38:45 CET 2015

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tikkun/NSP--Network of Spiritual Progressives <
info at spiritualprogressives.org>
Date: Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 6:14 AM
Subject: Vandana Shiva is the new co-chair of the NSP! And a request from
her...
To: Michelsub2004 at gmail.com

<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=kahS6ZFN1Qy3FUYBD5hYl8LuHMJaZl7g>

.
We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives are delighted to announce that
Vandana Shiva, the internationally acclaimed environmental activist from
India has become the international co-chair of the Network of Spiritual
Progressives along with Rabbi Michael Lerner. Dr. Shiva has contributed in
fundamental ways to changing the practice and paradigms of agriculture and
food. Her books *The Violence of the Green Revolution* and *Monocultures of
the Mind* pose essential challenges to the dominant paradigm
of non-sustainable, industrial agriculture. Through her books Biopiracy,
Stolen Harvest and Water Wars, Dr. Shiva has made visible the social,
economic and ecological costs of corporate-led globalization.
.
 In her letter to us accepting the position of NSP co-chair, Vandana Shiva
requested that we send out to you her request that you read the information
below, and then sign and send the letter included below to President Obama
and President Modi. You can copy and send the letter below to President
Obama at the White House website
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=WJLajbqNeb9I17baaICELMLuHMJaZl7g>.
President
Modi will receive messages mailed to the Embassy of India,  2107
Massachusetts Ave. NW. Washington, DC 20008 or by calling (202) 939-7000 or
by faxing (202) 265-4351.
.
 In her letter to us accepting this position, Dr. Shiva also
enthusiastically endorsed the Environmental and Social Responsibility
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution proposed by the Network of Spiritual
Progressives. She had previously told us that she was particularly
enthusiastic about the section of the ESRA which eliminates all private and
corporate money from elections and the part which requires corporations to
prove a satisfactory history of environmental and social responsibility to
a panel of ordinary citizens in order to get or renew (every five years)
their corporate charter. Please read it at www.tikkun.org/esra
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=jiN5ptbncBwiHw1LC4SwdMLuHMJaZl7g>
and help us get your local city council, state legislature, Congressional
representatives and U.S. Senators, your local branches of whatever
political party you belong to, your church, synagogue, mosque or ashram,
your college of university, your union or professional organization, and
your local civic and social change oriented organizations to publicly
endorse it.
.
 If you have not yet joined the NSP, please do so now by clicking here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=UB%2Fq%2Bpp%2FetvlxAj%2BC50grMLuHMJaZl7g>.
Warm
wishes for a wonderful New Year. We face immense challenges with a new
Congress determined to undo environmental protections and defund social
welfare programs for the poor and powerless. Don't face those challenges
alone! JOIN THE NSP
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=RUgqzHMVUZmOBKYNSo13qMLuHMJaZl7g>
!
 .

With gratitude for your support,
.
 Cat J. Zavis
Executive Director
Cat at spiritualprogressives.org
------------------------------
 *Seed Freedom and Food Democracy*
An Open letter to Prime Minister Modi and President Obama from democratic,
concerned citizens of India and the US
 .
We, as concerned and democratic citizens of India, and the US, welcome the
coming together of two of the largest democracies of the world to work
together to protect the rights of their citizens and their biodiversity.
Both nations were founded on the principles of freedoms of our people, and
the unacceptability of colonialism and subservience to Empire.
 .
President Obama, you have been invited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to
India’s Republic day celebrations on 26thJan, 2015. In 1930, on 26th
January, the people of India pledged to demand Purna Swaraj or complete
self-ruleindependent of the British Empire. (Literally translated from
Sanskrit, purna, “complete"; swa, “self"; raj, “rule".)
 .
The people of India observed 26 January as *Independence Day*. The flag of
India was hoisted publicly, across India, by Congress volunteers, patriots
and the citizens of India. The declaration stated the following:
 .
*We believe that it is the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of
any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil and
have the necessities of life, so that they may have full opportunities of
growth. We believe also that if any government deprives a people of these
rights and oppresses them the people have a further right to alter it or to
abolish it. The British Government in India has not only deprived the
Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of
the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally, and
spiritually. We believe, therefore, that India must sever the British
connection and attain Purna Swaraj, or complete independence.*
 .
We write this letter in the spirit of Swaraj-of Bija Swaraj (Seed Freedom)
and Anna Swaraj (Food Democracy), with the hope that your visit to India
will enhance and deepen the common freedoms of the people of India and the
US, not the freedoms of the Corporations undermining the freedoms of
citizens in both countries. Your visit coincides with pressure being put by
the US, on behalf of its corporations, to undermine seed freedom in India.
Our particular concern is Intellectual Property Rights in the area of
biodiversity, seeds , and living biological resources.
.
 .
On 30 September 2014, the US & India issued a Joint Statement on the
occasion of Prime Minister Modi’s meeting  with President Obama,in the US.
 *(a)greeing on the need to foster innovation in a manner that promotes
economic growth and job creation...committed to establish an annual
high-level Intellectual Property (IP) Working Group with appropriate
decision-making and technical-level meetings as part of the Trade Policy
Forum.*
.

 We hope that fostering innovation refers to real innovation and not theft
from nature or other parts of the world.
.
 LIFE IS NOT AN INVENTION
.
 IPRs expanded to cover living systems and organisms is a distortion of
“Innovation” and “invention”. This distortion was introduced by
corporations such as Monsanto in the TRIPS(Trade Related Intellectual
Property Rights) Agreement of WTO. Corporate influence on Patent Law began
with the drafting of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
Agreement of the WTO by the Intellectual Property Committee (IPC) of the
multilateral corporations.
.
 James Enyart of Monsanto is on record illustrating just how deeply the
TRIPs agreement is aligned to corporate interest and against the interests
of nations and their citizens:
.
 “Once created, the first task of the IPC was to repeat the missionary work
we did in the US in the early days, this time with the industrial
associations of Europe and Japan to convince them that a code was possible….
Besides selling our concepts at home, we went to Geneva where [we]
presented [our] document to the staff of the GATT Secretariat. We also took
the opportunity to present it to the Geneva based representatives of a
large number of countries… What I have described to you is absolutely
unprecedented in GATT. Industry has identified a major problem for
international trade. It crafted a solution, reduced it to a concrete
proposal and sold it to our own and other governments… *The industries and
traders of world commerce have played simultaneously the role of patients,
the diagnosticians and the prescribing physicians*.”
 .
The first case in the WTO was initiated by the US against India,  to force
India to change it’s patent laws. Methods of agriculture and plants were
excluded from patentability in the Indian patent act to ensure that seed,
the first link in the food chain, was held as a common property resource in
the public domain and farmers’ inalienable right to save, exchange and
improve seed was not violated.And only process patents were allowed in
medicine.The pharmaceutical corporations which are the same as the
biotechnology corporations are seeking absolute monopolies on seed and
medicine through patents.
.
 When India amended her patent acts, safeguards consistent with TRIPS were
introduced. Article 3 defines what is not patentable subject matter.
.
 Article 3(d) excludes as inventions “the mere discovery of any new
property or new use for a known substance”.
.
 This was the article under which Novartis’s patent claim to a known cancer
drug was rejected. This is the article that Novartis tried to challenge in
the Supreme court and lost.
.
 Article 3(j) excludes from patentability “plants and animals in whole or
in any part thereof other than microorganisms; but including seeds,
varieties, and species, and essentially biological processes for production
or propagation of plants and animals".
.
 This was the article used by the Indian patent office to reject a Monsanto
patent on climate resilient seeds.
.
 While the Indian patent office rejected a Monsanto patent, the US Supreme
Court ruled on behalf of Monsanto against a farmer called Bowman who had
not bought seeds from Monsanto but purchased soybeans from an Indiana grain
elevator.The US Supreme court ruling creates intellectual property in
future generations of a grain or seed. This is biologically and
intellectually incorrect because all that Monsanto has done is add a gene
for resistance to its proprietary herbicide Round up, to (i) claim
ownership of any plant/animal that gene finds it’s way into and (ii) to
enforce a RoundUp monopoly. Adding a gene of RoundUp resistance does not
amount to “inventing” or “creating” a soya bean seed, its future
generations and the species the gene pollutes.
 .
In addition to suing farmers like Bowman, Monsanto has sued farmers like
Percy Schmeiser of Canada whose fields were contaminated with Monsanto’s
Roundup ready canola. Instead of the principle of polluter pays, patents
allow Monsanto to work on the principle of polluter gets paid. This has
recently happened in the Australia in the case of Steve Marsh. While
Monsanto does not have a patent on Bt cotton in India, it goes outside the
law to collect royalties as“technology fees”. Most of the 291000 farmers
suicides in India since 1995 when WTO came into force are concentrated in
the cotton belt. And 95% cotton is now controlled by Monsanto.
 .
Intellectual Property Rights are defined as property in the “products of
the mind”, including patents. Patents are granted for inventions, and give
the patent holder the right to exclude everyone from the use or marketing
of a patented product or process. Over the last 2 decades, patent laws have
taken a different direction, under the influence of corporations, from
protecting the interests of genuine inventions and ideas to ownership of
life and control over survival essentials like seed and medicine. Such
monopolies are violative of article 21 of the Indian constitution which
guarantees all citizens the right to life.
.
This is why 3(j) in India’s patent law excludes essentially biological
processes from being counted as an invention.

The TRIPS article on Patents of Life was to be reviewed within four years
of the coming into force of the WTO agreement i.e. in 1999. India in its
submission had stated “Clearly, there is a case for re-examining the need
to grant patents on lifeforms anywhere in the world. Until such systems are
in place, it may be advisable to (a) exclude patents on all lifeforms
.
 The mandatory review of TRIPS has been blocked by the US since 1999. This
review must be completed to remove the current IPR distortions.
 Biopiracy is not “Innovation”
.
 Biopiracy is another example of false claims to “inventions”. Over the
past decade, through new property rights, corporations have gained control
over the diversity of life on earth, and people’s indigenous knowledge.
There is no innovation involved in these cases; they are instruments of
monopoly control over life itself. Patents on living resources and
indigenous knowledge are an enclosure of the biological and intellectual
commons. Life forms have been redefined as “manufacture”, and “machines”,
robbing life of its integrity and self-organization. Traditional knowledge
is being pirated and patented unleashing a new epidemic of “bio piracy”.

   - Patenting of Neem The patenting of the fungicidal properties of Neem
   was a blatant example of biopiracy and indigenous knowledge. But on 10th
   May, the European Patent Office (EPO) revoked the patent (0436257 B1)
   granted to the United States Department of Agriculture and the
   multinational corporation W. R. Grace for a method of controlling fungi on
   plants by the aid of an extract of seeds from the Neem tree. The challenge
   to the patent of Neem was made at the Munich Office of the EPO by 3 groups
   : The European Parliament’s Green Party, Dr. Vandana Shiva of RFSTE, and
   the International Federation of Organic Agriculture and challenged it on
   the grounds of “lack of novelty and inventive step”. They demanded the
   invalidation of the patent among others on the ground that the fungicide
   qualities of the Neem and its use has been known in India for over 2000
   years, and for use to make insect repellents, soaps, cosmetics and
   contraceptives and the neem patent was finally revoked.
   - Biopiracy of Basmati On 8th July 1994, Rice Tec Inc, a Texas based
   company, filed a generic patent(Patent No. 5663484) on basmati rice lines
   and grains in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) with 20
   broad claims designed to create a complete rice monopoly patent which
   included planting, harvesting collecting and even cooking. Though Rice Tec
   claimed to have “invented” the Basmati rice, yet they accepted the fact
   that it has been derived from several rice accessions from India. Rice Tec
   had claimed a patent for inventing novel Basmati lines and grains. After
   protests, and the case in the Supreme Court of India, the U.S. Patent and
   Trademark Office struck down most sections of the Basmati patent.
   - Syngenta’s Attempt at Biopiracy of India’s rice diversity Syngenta,
   the biotech giant, tried to grab the precious collections of 22,972
   varieties of paddy, India’s rice diversity, from Chattisgarh in India. It
   had signed a MoU with the Indira Gandhi Agricultural University (IGAU) for
   access to Dr. Richharia’s priceless collection of rice diversity which he
   had looked after as if the rice varieties were his own children. The mass
   agitation by the peoples’ organisation, farmers’ unions and civil liberty
   groups, women’s groups, students’ groups and biodiversity conservation
   movements against Syngenta and IGAU bore result and Syngenta called off the
   deal.
   - Monsanto’s Biopiracy of Indian Wheat  European Patent Office in Munich
   revoked Monsanto’s patent on the Indian wheat variety, Nap Hal. Monsanto,
   the biggest seed corporation was assigned the patent (No. EP 0445929 B1) on
   wheat on May 21st, 2003 by the EPO under the simple title, “plants”. On
   January 27th, 2004 The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and
   Ecology along with Greenpeace and Bharat Krishak Samaha filed a petition at
   the EPO challenging the patent rights given to Monsanto, leading to the
   patent being revoked.
   - ConAgra’s Biopiracy claim on Atta (Wheat flour) Atta, a staple food
   and ingredient within India, is currently under threat from the corporation
   ConAgra who filed a “novel” patent (patent no 6,098,905) claiming the
   rights to an atta processing method, and was granted the patent on August
   8th, 2000. The method that ConAgra is claiming to be novel has been used
   throughout South Asia by thousands of atta chakkis, and so cannot justly be
   claimed as a novel patent.
   - Monsanto’s Biopiracy of Indian Melons In May 2011, the US company
   Monsanto was awarded a European patent on conventionally bred melons (EP 1
   962 578). These melons which originally stem from India have a natural
   resistance to certain plant viruses. Using conventional breeding methods,
   this type of resistance was introduced to other melons and is now patented
   as a Monsanto “invention”. The actual plant disease, Cucurbit yellow
   stunting disorder virus (CYSDV), has been spreading through North America,
   Europe and North Africa for several years. The Indian melon, which confers
   resistance to this virus, is registered in international seed banks as PI
   313970. With the new patent, Monsanto can now block access to all breeding
   material inheriting the resistance derived from the Indian melon. The
   patent might discourage future breeding efforts and the development of new
   melon varieties. Melon breeders and farmers could be severely restricted by
   the patent. At the same time, it is already known that further breeding
   will be necessary to produce melons that are actually protected against the
   plant virus. DeRuiter, a well known seed company in the Netherlands,
   originally developed the melons. DeRuiter used plants designated PI 313970
   – a non-sweet melon from India. Monsanto acquired DeRuiter in 2008, and now
   owns the patent. The patent was opposed by several organisations in 2012.
   - Monsanto’s Biopiracy of Climate Resilience Monsanto applied for
   blanket patents for “Methods of Enhancing Stress Tolerance in plants and
   methods thereof”  (The title of the patent was later amended to “A method
   of producing a transgenic plant , with increasing heat tolerance, salt
   tolerance or drought tolerance”). These traits have been evolved by our
   farmers over millennia, through applying their knowledge of breeding. On
   5th July, 2013, Hon Justice Prabha Sridevi, Chair of the Intellectual
   Property Appellate Board of India, and Hon Shri DPS Parmar, technical
   member, dismissed Monsanto’s appeal against the rejection of these patents
   that claim Monsanto has invented all resilience

Corporations like Monsanto have taken 1500 patents on Climate Resilient
crops. The climate resilient traits will become increasingly important in
times of climate instability. Along coastal areas, farmers have evolved
flood tolerant and salt tolerant varieties of rice such as “Bhundi”,
“Kalambank”, “Lunabakada”, “Sankarchin”,
“Nalidhulia”,“Ravana”,”Seulapuni”,”Dhosarakhuda”. Crops such as millets
have been evolved for drought tolerance , and provide food security in
water scare regions, and water scarce years.
.
 To end this new epidemic and to save the sovereignty rights of our farmers
and citizens, it is required that our legal systems recognise the rights of
communities, their collective and cumulative innovation in breeding
diversity, and not merely the rights of corporations. It is the need of the
hour to evolve categories of community intellectual rights (CIRs) related
to biodiversity to balance and set limits along with boundary conditions
for protection. The Intellectual Property Rights as evolved are in effect,
a denial of the collective innovation of our people and the seed
sovereignty or seed rights of our farmers.
.
 FREEDOM TO SAVE SEEDS IS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT

In 2004, both India and the US introduced new seed laws that criminalized
the saving of traditional/heirloom varieties of all seeds. By outlawing the
availability of renewable, open-pollinated seeds, corporations selling
non-renewable patented seeds would be able to force everyone, from a large
scale farmer to a balcony gardner, to buy only the seeds they sold,
ensuring an absolute monopoly.

In India, hundreds of thousands of citizens petitioned the government and
worked with the Parliament to roll back the Seed Law of 2004.

India’s law titled Plant Variety Protection and Farmers Rights Act 2001 has
a clause on Farmers Rights.

*“a farmer shall be deemed to be entitled to save, use, sow, resow,
exchange, share or sell his farm produce including seed of a variety
protected under this Act in the same manner as he was entitled before the
coming into force of this Act”*

There is no such protection for citizens and farmers of the US. Not only
are citizens in the US being denied their right to know what they are
eating, they are now being denied their right and duty to save and exchange
seed. The Seed Laws of 2004 have been used in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
now, Minnesota, to shut down seed libraries.

Seed saving is the foundation of Swaraj in our times. Seed saving is vital
to our ability to address hunger and malnutrition. Seed Saving is vital to
bring back taste, nutrition and quality in our food. And without
conservation and evolution of the biodiversity of our seeds ,we will not be
able to adapt to climate change.
.
 Seed Freedom is an imperative for the poor farmers of India, but also for
the equally hard working farmers of the US; and the human species.
 And the duty to save seeds is an ethical and ecological imperative.
 Patents on life violate the “Order Public” or moral order embodied in the
philosophy of Vasudhaiv Kutumbhakam, all beings on earth as a family. IP
laws need to be subjected to ethical criteria, criteria of justice, and on
a clear definition of invention.|
Life forms, plants and seeds are all evolving, self-organized, sovereign
beings. They have intrinsic worth, value and standing. Owning life by
claiming it to be a corporate invention is ethically and legally wrong.
Patents on seeds are legally wrong because seeds are not an invention.
Patents on seeds are ethically wrong because seeds are life forms, they are
our kin members of our earth family.
.
 When the US talks of strong patent laws , it is restricting itself to the
corporate interest.On criteria of corporate rights at the cost of nature
and people, US laws are strong.On grounds of ethical considerations and
social and ecological justice, they are weak.
.
 CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PERSONS, AND AN ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY IS NOT FREE
SPEECH
.
 During your first election campaign, President Obama, you had promised you
would implement a law for labeling GMO foods. Sadly, $100 million has been
used to defeat labeling laws in California, Washington, Colorado, Oregon.
And Vermont which did pass a labeling law is being sued by corporations on
the false premise of corporate personhood, and the influence of money as
corporate “free speech”. Denying Citizens the Right to Know violates the
fundamental principles of Food Democracy.
.
 When the County of Maui in Hawaii voted to be GMO free, Dow and Monsanto
sued them, subverting the democratic process which rests on the will of
people, not the power of Corporations. This corporate jurisprudence needs
to be reversed if human rights and the rights of Mother Earth are to be
protected.
------------------------------
 Dear President Obama and Prime Minister Modi,
.
 Humanity and the Earth are at a critical juncture. Patents on seeds and
seed monopolies have created an ecological crisis of biodiversity erosion,
erosion of farmers rights and erosion of people’s freedoms.
.
 It is not India’s IPR laws that need changing but US laws. On criteria of
rights of nature and people’s rights, India’s laws are strong.  As our
democracies deepen their interaction, the citizens of India and the US
expect that it will be ethical and ecological values that will lead the
dialogue, not the false claims of“invention” by corporations to establish
ownership of life on Earth. Ownership and royalty collections are the only
reason GMOs are being pushed by corporations. It is imperative that we
protect our cultural and indigenous intellectual property from being
appropriated for short term profits of a few.
.
 As citizens, we ask that in each of our countries, you do not dismantle
the protections that ensure the ethical fabric of our societies and the
fundamental freedoms like saving seeds and knowing what we are eating, in
order to allow corporate ownership of nature’s bounty through false claims
of innovation. We ask that our democratic representatives take the
strengths in our legislation (e.g. Article 3(d) and 3(j) of the Indian
Patent Act) and multiply our strengths. Working together, we resolve to
protect these rights that we have and should have. Prime Minister Modi, we
count on you to uphold the science based definitions in India’s patent laws
 that protect the rights of citizens, and play a leadership role to work
with President Obama to help correct the distortions in the US IPR system.
.
 We ask that the US not put pressure on India to undo article 3(d) and
3(j), and will instead take lessons from India about how to respect the
integrity of living systems and processes, and put the rights of farmers
and citizens first. For us seed freedom includes farmers rights to save,
exchange, breed, sell farmers varieties of seeds- varieties that have been
evolved over millennia without interference of the state or corporations.
.
 Prime Minister Modi and President Obama, let this Republic day in India
sow the seeds of Earth Democracy and Vasudhaiva Kutumbhakam, for our times
and the future. We hope you show great leadership by working together to
strengthen the laws to protect your citizens and countries instead of
making it easier for corporations to take control over life-forms for short
term profits. Let us build Purna Swaraj for all life on Earth, freedom to
grow our food and know our food. Let us work toward a future where our food
is our freedom.

------------------------------

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