Vandana Shiva on the poison cartel, the Gates Foundation and new attempts to control seed and food:
“it’s about the tools that you promise, whether they work or not is not the issue – it’s what you promise that will get you the billions. We are not going to leave the future of human evolution in the hands of Man, for Life is not a Microsoft program: our future is not for your betting”.
Jim Thomas (ETC Group) intervenes on new corporate technologies
“If you don’t know the pain of those you are destroying, you don’t have knowledge. Manipulating the genetic structure in ignorance has led to failure, as in the case of the BT cotton in India” – Vandana Shiva
19.00h: The Plenary Session “New Corporate Strategies for Extending Control over our Seed, Food and Planet” has started! Featuring speakers:
Jim Thomas (ETC Group), Vandana Shiva (Navdanya), Antonius Michelmann (Bayer Co-ordination, Germany), Xiulin Gu (Yunnan University Professor of Finance and Economics, China) and members of the Multi Watch Basel organisation
Ronnie Cummins: “They may have billions, but we are billions”
Hans Van Scharen, from the office of Bart Staes, MEP for the Green Party, explains this process during the People’s Assembly at The Hague on 15th October 2016: “This kind of trade agreements are in their essence undemocratic and the provisional mode they were trying to impose overtaking the national Parliaments is just another proof”.
Nina Holland, of Corporate Europe Observatory, talks greenwashing, through lobbying & propaganda:
“They can even fool laureates! It is from this play on words, from the capacity to manipulate language and the essential European principles, from propaganda tactics used to promote free-trade treaties, that we need to protect ourselves: the principle of precaution does not harm a country’s innovation; on the contrary, it promotes the safety of innovation and the freedom of its citizens”.
18:00h: Attack on Democracy and Laws that Protect the Planet and our Food Freedom – featuring speakers Ronnie Cummings (Organic Consumers Association), Nina Holland (Corporate Europe Observatory), Hans Van Sharen of Bart Staes’ (European Greens) office.
18.00h: the first Plenary “Attack On Democracy and Laws that Protect the Planet and our Food Freedom” has started
16.45 – Reports from the workshops
Agroecology Workshop
British and French activists showing their banners during a break
15.00h: the workshops have re-started after the lunch break at the Bazaar of Ideas!
Workshop D2 – Struggles Against Agrotoxics, (new) GMOs, TNCs and for Peasant Rights and Food Sovereignty
Featuring speakers from La Via Campesina together with allied movements such as Conféderation Paysanne, etc.
Circle speaking of Seed Laws
Circle speaking of Seed Festivals and networking
Circle speaking of Seed Saving
Seed workshop C2 – Steps Toward Seed Freedom: Seed Saving, Seed Laws and Patents on Seed (2)
14.00 Start of the second session of workshops.
Dr Vandana Shiva releases a video interview
Tapsoba Ali de Goamma and Ruchi Shroff
(Left to right) Lilia Ghanem, Ruchi Shroff (Navdanya International) and Ali Tapsoba de Goamma (CCAE)
13.30 am – Tapsoba Ali de Goamma, Lilia Ghanem and Navdanya’s Fibers of Freedom
13.00 – The first session is over
11.30am: workshop A1 – How to ban GMOs worlwide – GMO cases around the world.
Featuring the participation of: Moms across America, Conféderation Paysanne, CCFD members from the Global South, Biowatch South Africa, MADGE Australia, GM Free Australia, UBINIG Bangladesh, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and Friends of the Earth Europe.
11.15 am: workshop D1 – Campaign to Reclaim Peoples’ Sovereignity, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity
Featuring the participation of: Transnational Institute (TNI), La Via Campesina, BioWatch / South Africa, Global Justice Now, FIAN and Friends of the Earth International
11.00 am – Activists showing their communication material to the public at the People’s Assembly
Panagiotis Sainatoudis and Vasso Kanellopolou from Pelìti Greece intervenes
ASeed – European network based in The Netherlands
Circles of Seeds and GAIA – Portugal
Longo Mai, Worldwide Network based in Europe
Alba Portillo – Red de Guardianes de Semillas (Colombia)
Johanna Eckhardt – No Patents on Seeds
Ruchi Shroff, Director of Navdanya International, coordinator of the Seed Freedom campaign
10.30 am – Step towards Seed Freedom. The workshop has begun!
Seed workshop C1 – Steps Toward Seed Freedom: Seed Saving, Seed Laws and Patents on Seed (1)
Workshop co-ordinator Cooper Freeman; featuring participation by
Navdanya, Pelìti Greece, UGM / CAPROSET Mali, Autre Terre, Rede Cìrculos de Sementes, GAIA Portugal, ASEED Europe, Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, Frosamlerne, No Patents on Seeds, Longo Mai and many others
10.00 am – Everything is ready for the second day of the People’s Assembly with workshops and a livestreaming of the Tribunal in the Bazaar of Ideas at The Hague.
