UPOV 91 Agreement

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It's been 3 months since with 13 votes in favor, 5 against and 6 abstentions, the Chilean Senate adopted on 11 May the UPOV 91 Agreement, which will prevent farmers from saving seeds and will extend the time of application of rights and guarantees fot the companies that sell hybrid and transgenic seeds in the country.

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) is an intergovernmental organization with headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland), favored by the major seed companies and supported by governments around the world. They started producing hybrids and today the are also producing transgenics. Among these companies there is Monsanto, which controls more than 90% of the transgenic seed market, Syngenta, Bayer and Dupont / Pioneer. Seeds and pesticides sales report huge profits for these companies, at the expense of the destruction of minor agriculture and agro-business, and replaced by growth of transgenic seeds. The price of food, according to FAO, is currently the highest in history.

In Chile the UPOV 91 not only violates human rights (the selection, improvement and exchange of seeds - trafkintu in mapudungun language), is a human right of farmers and indigenous peoples of the world, even acknowledged in the Tratado de Recursos Fitogenéticos of the FAO), it has also presented serious conflicts of interests since one of the major businesses that will profit from this belongs to the familiy of Ena Von Baer, current Senator and former Government Spokesman.