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Activists in the rich and poor countries of the world have forged a global
alliance to oppose the use of biotechnology in agriculture. ‘We have made a
formal alliance with the Third World Network, the largest network of
nongovernmental organisations in the developing countries,’ says Jeremy
Rifkin, of the Foundation on Economic Trends, an organisation based in
Washington which opposes such uses of biotechnology.

‘We want to spread our ‘pure food’ campaign beyond North America and
Europe,’ he says. The idea is that activists in the rich countries will
organise consumer boycotts of genetically engineered foods, while the
farmers in the South oppose the patenting of genes for use in agriculture.

Rifkin expects a million farmers in India to demonstrate on 1 October –
Gandhi’s birthday – against patenting genes. ‘We want the gene pool to stay
open as a common inheritance, and that’s our agreement with the Third World
Network,’ says Rifkin.