this situation has been discussed at length on the newsgroup
atl.agriculture.  you may want to check it out to see what other action is
taking place.

Tom Batstone
-----Original Message-----
From: David Burman <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, October 01, 1998 9:21 AM
Subject: Fwd: email campaign re: seed-sterilizing technology


>This should be of interest to US health promoters and anyone interested in
>the effects of technology on food access.  Monsanto is currently
>developing, and seeking to patent, seed containing a plant gene that would
>ensure that the seeds produced from crops would be sterile. That means that
>farmers would no longer be able to store the seed from one crop for the
>following year, but will be obliged to buy new seed (from guess who?) every
>year. For third world farmers (where sales are to be targetted) this could
>be disastrous. If the gene gets into wild plants it could be an ecological
>catastrophe!
>Check out the website below for further info.
>David Burman
>
>>X-BlackMail: [log in to unmask], dijkstra.uwaterloo.ca,
>[log in to unmask], 129.97.54.123
>>X-Authenticated-Timestamp: 15:57:43(EDT) on September 30, 1998
>>Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 15:00:29 -0400
>>From: Steve Kurtz <[log in to unmask]>
>>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 [en] (Win95; U)
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: email campaign re: seed-sterilizing technology
>>Sender: [log in to unmask]
>>
>>Date:  Tue, 29 Sep 1998 16:12:38 -0800
>>From: [log in to unmask]
>>To: Multiple recipients of <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject:  Terminator: RAFI Launches Mail Campaign
>>
>>--------------------------------------
>>       Help Stop the Terminator
>>Jump to: http://www.rafi.org/usda.html
>>--------------------------------------
>>
>>Monsanto in Closed Negotiations with the US Department of Agriculture to
>>Finalize Control of Terminator Technology
>>
>>        --------------------------------------------------------
>>        Monsanto is moving swiftly to finalize its control over
>>        the Terminator technology.  The company may extract an
>>        exclusive license from the US Department of Agriculture
>>        (USDA) within weeks.   RAFI is initiating an urgent
>>        internet-based international campaign to stop the USDA -
>>        Monsanto negotiations before it's too late.  A special
>>        WWW page has been set up at http://www.rafi.org/usda.html
>>        to enable anyone with internet access to send a customized
>>        message to the USDA asking it to cease negotiations and
>>        bury this anti-farmer, anti-biodiversity technology.
>>        ----------------------------------------------------------
>
>>
>