First day of IRRI’s board meeting Asian farmers shout 50 years is enough, protest at Los Baños

April 12, 2010

About a thousand Asian and Filipino farmers, agriculturists, scientists, students and advocates protested at the gates of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Laguna to call for its permanent closure coinciding with its 50th year of existence. The protest is in line with culmination of the Year of Rice Action (YORA) 2009 – 2010 international campaign, composed of countries such as Philippines, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Nepal, Laos PDR, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh and Pakistan vowed anew to protect bio-diversed traditional and indigenous varieties of rice against the genetically-engineered promoted by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and agro-chemical TNCs such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow AgroSciences and BASF.

YORA is campaigned by Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines), Pesticide Action Network – Asia-Pacific (PAN-AP), Resistance and Solidarity against Agro-chem TNCs (RESIST) and MASIPAG (Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development) of the Philippines, Asian Peasant Coalition (APC), Alliansi Gerakan Reforma Agraria (AGRA) in Indonesia, All Nepal Peasants Federation (ANPFa), Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum in India, Vikalpani in Sri Lanka, and more than ten organizations in Asia. The protest action was also joined by hundreds of farmers from KASAMA-TK (KMP Southern Tagalog) and from MASIPAG.

“We would like to call the attention of IRRI’s Board of Trustees (BOT), particularly Dr. Robert S. Zeigler, IRRI’s Director-General from the United States and Dept. of Agriculture Sec. Bernie Fondevilla and convey our message that its about time for IRRI to evaluate its existence. IRRI’s BOT should listen to the farmers that its research did not benefit rice consumers and farmers worldwide. In fact, it will celebrate its 50th anniversary in the midst of a global food crisis where at least 2.9 million people (and counting) have already died of hunger as of today.,” said Danilo Ramos, KMP Secretary-General and also the Secretary-General of the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC).

The Board of Trustees of IRRI is composed of Zeigler, P. Stephen Baenziger of the United States, Ralph Anthony Fischer of Australia, Mutsuo Iwamoto of Japan, Joyce Kikafunda of Uganda, Seong-Hee Lee of Korea, Jillian Lenné of United Kingdom, Mangala Rai and Usha Barwale Zehr of India, Emerlinda Roman, president of University of the Philippines system, Achmad Suryana of Indonesia, Mohammed Syeduzzaman of Banglades, Elizabeth Woods of Australia and Zhai Huqu of China.

“IRRI had enough existence and opportunities of exploiting farmers globally. It should be abolished immediately if we want to save bio-diversity of rice varieties and preserve the lives and health of farmers who have been exposed to deadly agro-chemicals it promotes, alongwith giant agro-chem TNCs,” he said.

“Entrusted with the world’s rice germplasm, IRRI is currently revising its Intellectual Property Right (IPR) policy to enable some give and take with its new clientele – the corporates. Two questions arise immediately: how are these changes going to sit with IRRI’s public mandate? And what impact would this have on small farmers?,” said Shalini Bhutani of Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN).

“Its rice collection and the material it develops from it is IRRI’s biggest asset. At the heart of the redesign of its IPR policy is the question of how IRRI can raise financial resources from these materials? The business reality is that farmers’ material is industry’s raw material, and farmers themselves is the seed industry’s target market. So it makes sense for IRRI, in need of funding, and the private sector, wanting seeds to commercialise, and eager to take a greater piece of the potentially enormous rice seed market, to turn the situation around for their own benefit,” added Bhutani.

“All IRRI invented were the chain and shackles put to farmers, forcing them to use expensive and fatal agro-chemicals so that agro-chem TNCs could rake up super-profits as people starve,” added Marbella.

“IRRI should be held liable for the significant extinction of traditional rice varities across the world. While environmentalist are staking their lives to protect the environment and bio-diversity, IRRI, with all its multi-billion dollar funds, power and influence are consciously wiping-out natural genus of rice native to different countries. This is a ferocious crime against mother earth and against the future of mankind,” said Erpan Faryadi, Vice-chair for Internal Affairs of APC and AGRA secretary general from Indonesia.

“Pesticide poisonings (estimated at 25 million occurrences involving agricultural workers per year), environmental and health calamities, soil degradation and major pest outbreaks, such as brown plant hopper infestations, continue to haunt farming communities across Asia because of the increasing use of fertilizers and pesticides that IRRI’s modern rice varieties require,” remarked Clare Westwood of PAN AP.

“Chemical farming promoted by IRRI and TNCs are proven to be destructive and very unproductive. That’s why it is important that farmers have freedom over their seeds, technology, freedom from sickness, poverty, and debt. And these rights should be observed and protected. Masipag has by far promoted a farmer-led, sustainable agriculture that fits the capacity of small farmers in the country and has started the rice breeding program in 1987” said Chito Medina , MASIPAG National Coordinator.

The group vowed to protest further against IRRI extending YORA to even a bigger scale, being Decade of Rice Action (DORA). This is being planned by various countries pushing the YORA campaign, member-countries led by PAN AP and organizations of Asian Peasant Coalition and International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS).

“IRRI thought that there would be an opposing voice to what they are pushing. We proved them wrong as we are here at their gates, these would be followed by many more protest actions by many countries worldwide,” said Ramos.

The group said that the a world without IRRI is a world free of monopoly over rice varieties and deaths and diseases caused by agro-chemicals they promote. Foreign and local delegates continued to shout “50 years of IRRI is enough! IRRI should close down now!” #