Ecuador: Amendment in Law Gives Free Pass to Genetically Modified crops

GROUP PLANS NATIONWIDE STRIKE OPPOSING SEED LAW
Scienceline.org – Changes in Ecuador’s ‘seed law’ angers and frustrates scientists
An amendment that gives a free pass to genetically modified crops causes legal turmoil

Burning soy seeds lit up the city streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador, last May as dozens of farmers, activists and Indigenous people protested a controversial decision allowing research with genetically altered, or transgenic, plants. Since then, demonstrators have marched in different cities across the country including the capital, Quito. And scientists, both anti- and pro-GMO, are unhappy with the ruling as well.

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Now, the Federation of Peasant Organizations of the Littoral (FECAOL), the association organizing the protests, says it’s planning a nation-wide strike, possibly as soon as December 20.

Nearly a decade earlier, in 2008, the government of former president Rafael Correa rewrote Ecuador’s constitution. The new document adopted article 401, which defines the country as a transgenic-free territory, after an intense lobbying by environmental and left-wing groups. Read Article