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Issues and Campaigns PDF Print E-mail
To support its technical work, SEARICE advocates for policies that recognize, support, strengthen and institutionalize community initiatives in the conservation, development and use of plant genetic resources (PGRs). SEARICE develops the capacities of its partners, particularly farmers, for policy advocacy and campaign work, through participatory action research and lobbying for policies and mechanisms that aim to protect farmers’ initiatives and community PGRs.

SEARICE documents, promotes and disseminates the contribution and experiences of farmers and communities in PGR conservation, development and use, and disseminates this information as "knowledge products" to policy makers, and to the general public, toward the iformulation of policies that  recognize, protect and strengthen farmers’ initiatives at the local, national, regional and international levels.

SEARICE, through its Policy Information Unit (PIU), also does policy research, analysis, information dissemination and popularization of issues, policies and trends at the community, and national and international levels, as these affect farmers’ access, management and control of PGRs and local seed systems. SEARICE focuses on the following thematic issues:

New technologies – hybrid rice, genetic engineering in food and agriculture, genetic use restriction technologies/ terminator technologies (GURTs); climate change adaptation; agrofuels;

Application of intellectual property rights (IPRs) on seeds – patents on seeds, national seed regulations, and seed certification systems.

SEARICE’s PIU, together with its implementing partners and farmer-partners, initiates and promotes alternative sustainable systems like:

  • Promotion of farmers’ seed exchanges and observance of farmers’ festivities and cultural assertions promoting exchange of seeds and local knowledge systems;
  • Establishment of community agrobiodiversity conservation-protection systems such as community registry systems; and
  • Establishment of GM (genetically modified organism)– free zones and the passage of local ordinances prohibiting the entry of GM crops into local seed systems.