35 years in defence of Seed Freedom
7 March @ 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Presented by Vandana Shiva from Navdanya International.
Vandana will share an analysis of how patents on plants and seeds are based on the assumption that seeds and plants are machines, invented by the biotech industry. The ontology of seeds as autopoeitic and self-organised, evolutionary systems will also be discussed along with how article 3 j of India’s patent laws excludes plants, animals and seeds as inventions. Additionally, the issue of Biopiracy of indigenous knowledge of biodiversity and legal cases and victories in the case of Biopiracy of Neem, Basmati, Wheat will be explored. Finally, strategies of reclaiming the commons of seed and knowledge will be discussed.
Registration details to come.
About People, Plants and the Law Online Lecture Series
The People, Plants, and the Law lecture series explores the legal and lively entanglements of human and botanical worlds.
Today people engage with and relate to plants in diverse and sometimes divergent ways. Seeds—and the plants that they produce—may be receptacles of memory, sacred forms of sustenance, or sites of resistance in struggles over food sovereignty. Simultaneously, they may be repositories of gene sequences, Indigenous knowledge, bulk commodities, or key components of economic development projects and food security programs.
This lecture series explores the special role of the law in shaping these different engagements, whether in farmers’ fields, scientific laboratories, international markets, or elsewhere.
