DISMANTLE
CGIAR, IRRI, AND ALL ANTI-PEOPLE RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
Manila,
Philippines - 26 October 2002
We
the patriotic scientists and technologists in the Philippines,
would like to call for the dismantling of all anti-people
research institutions, specifically the Consultative Group
of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
In
the 1960s IRRI was created supposedly to achieve food productivity
and food sufficiency. Eleven years after that, CGIAR was
created to contribute to sustainable improvements in the
productivity of agriculture, forestry and fisheries in developing
countries in ways that enhance nutrition and well-being,
especially of low income people, through international research
and related activities, and in partnership with national
research systems.
The
governments that adopted IRRI programs, under the direction
of the CGIAR, imposed upon their farmers a scheme that shall
increase harvest though the heavy use of chemical inputs.
After the so-called "Green Revolution" farmers
are more impoverished and poisoned by the very chemicals
they used. Our farmlands have been devastated and our rice
gene pool depleted. After years of following IRRI programs,
the country is nowhere near establishing its own rice industry,
and is in fact importing increasing amounts of rice every
year.
The
16 international institutions under CGIAR, despite its monopoly
of agricultural R&D, has also failed to contribute significantly
to the development of agricultural industries where it is
most needed, contrary to its aim of delivering sustainable
improvements and productivity in developing countries. In
the Philippines, we are nowhere near establishing our own
livestock industry, dairy industry, and other agricultural
industries.
In
actuality IRRI, through the direction of CGIAR , developed
technologies that is owned and controlled by agro-chemical
transnational corporations. This monopoly of technology
enslaved farmers to be dependent on agro-chem TNCs for seeds
and chemical inputs in their farming. In the end, it is
the agro-chem TNCs that benefited most from the devastation
wrought by the failed Green Revolution of the 1960s.
In
its 42-year existence, IRRI has done nothing but enslave
farmers, and threaten health and the environment. The creation
of CGIAR in 1971 even broadened the control of agro-chemical
TNCs in other fields of agriculture-including livestock,
forestry, and fisheries.
In
this light, both IRRI and CGIAR are failed research institutions.
We believe that a genuine, farmer-centered research institution
should develop technologies that shall liberate farmers
from dependence on any agro-chemical TNC, promote sustainable
agriculture, conserve the environment, and protect the health
of farmers.
On
the occasion of the People's Street Conference on 30 October
2002, coinciding with the Annual General Meeting of CGIAR
in the Philippines, we call for the dismantling of IRRI
and CGIAR with the theme: Uphold People's Control Over Agriculture!
Assert Farmer-Centered Research And Development! ***