Originally posted in IGC member conference: Date: July 11, 1999
Posted by: trastor@truevision.net
(From the Pakistan Observer, Islamabad, July 11, 1999)
By Devinder Sharma
Those who swear by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity have reasons to despair. In a complete turn-around from its original stand, CBDs scientific arm, the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), which met in Montreal from June 21 to June 25, has pushed the controversial terminator seed technology onto the battlefront.
And over the past few years, the battleground for biological warfare has shifted. It is now the turn of 400 million Indian farmers and for that matter over 1.4 billion farmers in the developing countries to face the fury and onslaught of genetically-engineered seeds. Exercising complete monopoly control through patent rights, the multinational seed industry is now poised to unleash its latest weapon the terminator seeds.
Aptly named "terminator", this seed-sterilisation technique, jointly developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) together with one of the biggest cotton seed companies, Delta and Pine Land Inc., enables seed companies to switch on-and-off a plant's reproductive processes. This means that farmers will get a good crop in the first year of sowing. But if they try to save the harvested seed for replanting, the crop would be sterile. In other words, farmers will be left with no choice but to buy seed afresh for every sowing, thereby ensuring profit security for the seed companies.
Equally worrying is that the genetic engineering techniques, subsequently developed and patented, called genetic use restriction technologies (GURTS) can be easily manipulated to reduce crop harvest in any given year. Depending on what the commercial interests of the seed company and its food exporting allies are, crop production can be programmed thereby threatening the food security of the developing country.
And to ensure that no country is able to resist the entry of GURTS, the Montreal meeting has adopted a resolution calling for a cautious approach to the use of the seeds, and has also made it obvious that countries which refuse to buy the seeds run the risk of economic sanctions from countries selling the seeds.
With the threat of economic sanctions looming overhead, developing countries are unlikely to put up a brave front. Although the seed sterilisation technique is still three years away from its commercialisation, the patent holders have already been preparing the ground for its easy adoption. Both the joint patent holders for terminator have filed for patents in more than 87 countries and that too in advance. Subsequently, over a dozen seed multinationals and biotechnology institutes have filed for patents on different versions of the GRUTS technology. Interestingly, the patent in India was filed three years before the technology became controversial!
Aware that the seed industry is sure to circumvent the intellectual property regime to use the technology on unsuspecting farmers, India had imposed a moratorium on its use in May 1998. The much-publicised ban, however, serves little purpose than to be effectively utilised as a weapon of political convenience. Instead of announcing deterring punishment for the seed companies which use the terminator gene, the Indian government had asked the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources in New Delhi to keep a watch on the imported seed material. Knowing well that it is practically impossible to keep track of a particular gene, the government had simply washed its hand off the controversy and in turn conveyed the right kind of signal to the seed companies.
Moreover, it is known that once the trade-related intellectual property paradigm extends its cover to include patents on genes and life forms, India will be under tremendous pressure to allow the application of the "terminator" gene. Any violation of the globally harmonised patent regime is going to invite the wrath of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). All that India can do is to buy time for a couple of years by initiating the dispute settlement mechanisms.
Nor is the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)worlds largest agricultural research network -- likely to hold on to its promise of refraining from the use of the technology in its varieties. Notwithstand the public posture of the CGIAR, the fact remains that a majority of the heads of the CGIAR institutes are unofficially in favour of the technology. They have strong interest in keeping this sterile seed biotechnology free of restrictions because many of them either come from institutes which have been researching on GRUTS and/or are likely to return to work with the multinational seed companies after retiring from the international agricultural research system.
Considering that in countries like India, where seed replacement is confined to only ten per cent of the 100 million land-holdings, terminator will rake in a massive windfall for the seed companies. Crops that are difficult to hybridise, mainly self-pollinated crops like wheat and rice, generally ignored by the seed companies because of the low-profit potential, will now receive utmost attention.
That genetic engineering is being used primarily to increase the profit margins of the seed and biotechnology companies was known. Earlier, seed companies had dovetailed pesticides and fertiliser research to produce herbicide-tolerant crops that would require farmers to purchase a particular brand of agro-chemical along with the seed. But that the private seed companies will go to the extent of manipulating biotechnology research by tampering with the genetic make-up of the crop seeds aimed at a 'sustained' flow of huge profits, has however come as a rude shock. Unless the developing countries rise against this terribly dangerous application of the 'cutting-edge' technology, seed companies will play havoc with the farming systems.
For the poor farmers with meager land-holdings and used to subsistence farming, the frontiers of new technology may spell doom. #
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Devinder Sharma is an Indian journalist, researcher, and a food and trade policy analyst. Among his recent works include two books 'GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair' and 'In The Famine Trap'.
Address: Post Box: 4, New Delhi-110 024, India.
Tel/Fax: +91-11-656 2326 Email: dsharma@ndf.vsnl.net.in