GeneCampaign.org
Title
Gene Campaign
Description
Starting in 1993, its been more then a decade since Gene Campaign, a leading research and advocacy organisation, has been working to empower local communities to retain control over their genetic resources in order to ensure food and livelihood security. Closely involved in policymaking and legislation with respect to biological resources, Gene Campaign has enabled rural and adivasi communities to participate in policies relating to these resources.
Gene Campaign has been largely responsible for raising the national debate on the dangers of seed patents and its threat to food sovereignty. Its long and sustained struggle for Farmers Rights culminated in legislation, the only one of its kind so far, that grants legal rights to farmers. The Campaign has been involved in the fight against the patents granted on Basmati rice, at the national and international level, and was the first to exposed the existence of the turmeric patent. Apart from this, it campaigned for a law to protect India's biodiversity and provided the first draft of a Biodiversity legislation in 1997, a law that was finally passed in 2001.
The Campaign is working for the recognition of Indigenous Knowledge as an important technology and its potential for increasing incomes for rural and adivasi communities. An important goal is to develop a system to grant legal rights to communities over the Indigenous Knowledge that they have created and continue to create. As part of its endeavor to protecting Indigenous Knowledge, Gene Campaign has lobbied hard and has succeeded in keeping medicines and products derived from Indigenous Knowledge, out of the purview of patents so that they are exempted from the Patent law.
