Galvan participated in the Forum on “Land concentration, investment treaties and phytogenetic resources” held on September 15. Members of the National Commission of Rural Promotion and of REDES-FoE Uruguay participated and spoke at the event.

“Each producer would traditionally keep its seeds, but that has changed over the past decades. Companies have began to concentrate seeds and today this is a great business taken over by transnational corporations”, said Galvan who regretted the fact that Uruguay lacks a clear policy for the conservation of vegetal genetic material.

Although he stressed that some of the varieties have been lost, he said there are still some varieties kept by family farmers like corn and different kinds of vegetables adapted to knowledge and to the country’s weather and soil conditions.

“There has not been specific support from the State, this is a pending issue. There is a bill on phytogenetic resources that is currently being reviewed by the Ministry of Agriculture but they have not sent it for Parliament consideration yet. The bill provides the preservation of genetic resources and recognizes the farmers’ property over them, as well as over the
knowledge linked to these crops”, said the researcher.

Galvan also told Real World Radio that “an Alliance between organic and agroecologic consumers and producers” is necessary in order to change the traditional scale of consumption and production in the big cities.

Photo: semillaslibres.org