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Annual Report 2010 / 2011

… male and female, He created them


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EED’s gender strategy follows a two-pronged approach: integration of gender analysis and measures into all its programs and procedures and targeted funding of projects committed to improving the lives of women. The annual report before you takes a look at this latter aspect of our gender strategy.
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New Release

Encounter beyond routine


Documentation on an International Consultation, 17th-23rd January 2010
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The right to future

Nine examples of community based empowerment processes.
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Network

EED is a member of theLogo ACT Alliance


Demonstration at the Federal Association of German Plant Breeders


(19.05.2008) La Via Campesina, the international movement of farmers demonstrated on the first day of the UN conference on biodiversity in Bonn in front of the House of Plant Breeding against bio-piracy and patents on life. Team: U. Sprenger / S. Schrade
Video Clip: German / English / Spanish

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The building is home to many lobbying groups of modern seed breeding, including the Federal Association of German Plant Breeders (BDP). Its members include small and medium-sized enterprises but also agro-biotechnological corporations Bayer CropScience, Monsanto, KWS and BASF. The latter is the company that currently in Germany urges on the cultivation of genetically modified industry potato "Amflora". BDP CEO Ferdinand Schmitz had himself and his staff prepared for the demonstrators with uniform T-shirts and own banners. He initially confronted them with a megaphone.

Schmitz said that his industry association insists on strong property rights to seeds, including patents. The UPOV Convention (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) is to prevent farmers seed exchange and further improvement by themselves. Farmers in many countries, however, are fighting for the so-called "Farmers' Rights", meaning the right to use their seeds own without royalty. The EED team spoke with two farmers from Germany and Costa Rica. They make clear what the consequences of the UPOV Convention are for them, for their work and the future of agriculture. After the rally in front of the BDP, the demonstration trekked in front of the Botanical Garden and to a seed diversity market in the Bonn city centre.
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