Venezuela bans GMOs

The National Assembly of Venezuela passed one of the most progressive seed laws in the world on December 23, 2015. The new seed law will allow food to be produced “under an agro-ecological model that respects the pacha mama (mother earth) and the right of our children to grow up healthy, eating healthy," according to the President Nicolas Maduro.

The law is a victory for the international movements for agroecology and food sovereignty because it bans transgenic (GMO) seed while protecting local seed from privatization. The law is also a product of direct participatory democracy –the people as legislator– in Venezuela, because it was hammered out through a deliberative partnership between members of the country’s National Assembly and a broad-based grassroots coalition of eco-socialist, peasant, and agroecological oriented organizations and institutions.

To read the full essay on the phenomenon of people as legislator, a summary of the new Seed Law, and an appendix with an unofficial translation of some of the articles of the law, click here.

Source: venezuelanalysis.com