Climate ready GM
crops: The patent race
Author: Rajesh Chhabara
Publication: ClimateChangeCorp.com
Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Via: AgBios
Over the past four years, the world’s leading agricultural
biotechnology companies have flooded patent offices with applications for
“climate-ready” genes. The companies claim their genetically engineered
climate-resistant seeds can withstand catastrophic effects of global warming,
such as floods, drought, heat, cold and salinity.
Over 530 applications, belonging to 55 patent families, for
climate-ready genes have already been lodged, according to a report in June by
the Ottawa-based Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC
group), which works for human rights and conservation. Most of the claims, some
of which have already been approved, are for a gene sequence and a method for
using it to engineer a plant that can withstand environmental stress.
Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, and BASF, the
world’s largest agro-chemicals company, lead the pack, seeking control of 27 of
the 55 patent families. The two agro-giants are partners in a $1.5 billion
research project to bio-engineer climate-resistant crops. Other companies in
the patent race include Dupont, Dow Agro Sciences and
Land O’ Lakes from the
These companies are accustomed to criticism of genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) or GM crops for their
potential impact on the environment and the poor, but their efforts to patent
climate-resistant GM crops have attracted fresh accusations – this time of
bio-piracy.
Patent case of bio-piracy?
Vandana Shiva, a veteran
environmentalist and founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology
and Ecology – a New Delhi-based NGO – says the climate-ready genes companies
are claiming as their own invention already exist and that local farmers are
familiar with the varieties in which they appear.
Activists say that companies are collecting seeds from parts
of the world with extreme climatic conditions in the assumption that seeds
there will possess the desired genetic traits. Then they map the genome of
these varieties to identify genes or gene sequences that increase a plant’s
tolerance to a certain environmental stress. The companies then develop a way
of transferring the identified gene sequences in a transgenic plant, or a
method to over-express the trait in the same plant.
“Farmers in
There is already a large number of
known climate-resistant crops. Scientists from the International Rice Research
Institute and the University of California-Davis discovered a farmers’ variety
of flood-resistant rice called “Dhullaputia” in the
flood-prone state of Orissa in
Similarly, researchers have found traditional African rice
that can withstand drought and heat. The African Rice Centre, an
intergovernmental research association, is now developing drought-resistant
varieties by crossing traditional African rice with high-yielding Asian rice.
“Seed companies are simply taking such naturally available
varieties in developing countries and using genetic engineering to isolate
climate-tolerant genes … [in order to] transfer them into a new species to
claim patents,” says Shiva.
A Monsanto spokesman in
Monsanto also said that “bio-piracy” was not an adequately
defined concept, and certainly had no internationally agreed definition.
The ETC Group defines bio-piracy as “the appropriation of
the knowledge and genetic resources of farming and indigenous communities by
individuals or institutions who seek exclusive monopoly control, through
patents or intellectual property, over these resources and knowledge.”
Activists say that current patent regimes benefit the
multinationals, because the burden of evidence to prove piracy lies with the
party challenging the patent. There are fears in the developing world that once
patents are granted to seed companies, local farmers will be forced to stop
using, even destroy, their own climate-resistant traditional varieties.
Once a genetic sequence becomes the intellectual property of
a company, it can prevent others using any plant that has a substantially
similar sequence. Farmers could therefore have to buy climate-tolerant seeds
from these companies for every crop-cycle and would not be allowed to store or
exchange seeds for replanting.
The broad application of patents is also a possibility. For example,
a Dupont patent claim for a method that will improve
a plant’s drought or cold tolerance is not limited to one crop but may extend
to several other plants, such as maize, barley, wheat, oat, rye, sorghum or
rice, soybean, alfalfa, safflower, tobacco, sunflower, cotton or canola,
according to the ETC Group. Monsanto, BASF, Syngenta
and others have filed numerous sweeping claims that will preclude future
competition by other companies.
Claims of damage to farmers
Seed companies claim their climate-resistant seeds will not
only help tackle global warming but address hunger and food shortage.
Shiva claims, conversely, that “if climate-traits are
patented, the cost of agriculture will go up and the poor will suffer even
more. Governments will have to spend more money to buy patented seeds as poor
farmers will not be able to afford them.”
She points to repeated reports of suicides by debt-ridden
cotton farmers in south
Activists say that these farmers had borrowed money, mostly
from local loan sharks to buy Bt seeds. However, the
revenues from the crop were not sufficient to cover the debt. And they had no
money to buy seeds for the new season. Moneylenders then foreclosed the loans
and confiscated their lands.
“This will be repeated with other crops now. Multinational
seed companies will force farmers to buy their fraudulently patented
climate-resistant seeds and push them into debt,” warns Shiva.
Hope Shand, research director of
ETC Group, says: “Governments should respond by recognising,
protecting, and strengthening farmer-based breeding and conservation programs
and the development of on-farm genetic diversity as a priority response for
climate change survival and adaptation.”
Campaign for regime change
Experts say a weak international patent regime is making
bio-piracy easier for companies. “While patent regime introduced by the WTO
TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) affords protection to
technologies developed by using biological material, the rights of countries
providing the material, as recognised by UN
Convention on Biodiversity, are completely ignored,” says Kasturi
Das, a Fellow at the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign
Trade in New Delhi.
Developing countries have clubbed together to demand an
amendment to TRIPS, requiring patent applications to disclose the origin of
biological resources or associated traditional knowledge, provide evidence of
prior information consent from the origin country and of benefit sharing.
However, a number of richer nations, including the
Shiva plans to launch a global campaign against bio-piracy
of climate-tolerant plant genes on October 1, which will include filing
bio-piracy cases against climate-trait patents in patent offices in the US and
Europe.
She has already overturned three non climate-related GM
patents filed by
That multinational companies were successful in claiming
such patents in the first place reflects on the
weaknesses of the patent regime, Shiva says. Nevertheless, she is confident the
climate trait-based patents will also be overturned.
A Monsanto spokesman told ClimateChangeCorp.com: “We are
extremely confident that all of our patents were developed in accordance with
international laws and agreements.”
Despite stiff resistance from most countries, and from the
EU as whole, GM crops are big business. Agricultural
biotechnology market research firm Context Network estimates that the global
proprietary seed market exceeded $22 billion in 2007, a 10% growth over 2006.
And with global warming expected to create unprecedented demand for
climate-resistant varieties to address food shortages, the new GM seeds could
gain biotech firms entry into fresh markets and power even more explosive
growth.
The stakes are high for both the seed giants and the
activists – we should expect a protracted battle.
SOURCE: CLIMATECHANGECORP.COM
agbios.com