Terminator seeds
Indian Farmers to fund USDA
By Devinder Sharma
Sounds incredible. But it will now be the turn of over 550 million Indian farmers, and for that matter an estimated 1.4 billion small and marginal farmers of the developing world, to financially support the cash-starved United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
And if you are wondering how will that be possible, hold your breath. In a controversial move, the USDA has in the first week of August announced its decision to license the notorious terminator technology to its seed industry partner, Delta & Pine Land, worldÃs biggest seed cotton company. The USDA and Delta & Pine Land are co-owners of three patents on the controversial technology that genetically modifies plants to produce sterile seeds, preventing farmers from re-using harvested seed - a practice that has been in vogue ever since man began farming.
It has also announced that all royalties accruing from the use of terminator will be earmarked for USDA's Agricultural Research Service innovations that of course will be made widely available to the American seed companies.
But then, the Indian farmers don’t pay royalty on crop seeds. True, very true. But itÃs a matter of time before they will start doing it. After all, the Plant Varieties Protection and the Farmers’ Rights Bill that has been approved by the lower House of Indian Parliament is merely the first step towards accepting the global doctrine of patenting of crop varieties. By the time, Delta & Pine Land is able to commercialise its terminator seed, not before the year 2004, the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement of the World Trade Organisation will make it obligatory for countries like India to harmonise its plant protection regime on lines with the prevailing international system.
At present, nearly a hundred countries are busy drafting and finalising their plant protection systems. And interestingly, more than 90 of these are modelling the plant protection system on the pattern of UPOV 1991, which is as good or as bad as the patent regime. Already, more than 50 countries have become members of the UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties), and whether we like it or not the balance is heavily tilted in favour of patents on plant varieties. Once the crop varieties are patented, royalties have to be paid by farmers. And once, these patented varieties are marketed in India, royalties collected from the subsistence farmers by the private seed companies will eventually flow back to the USDA.
No, not from Indian farmers, you will say. They are well protected under the new Indian law that awaits ParliamentÃs nod. After all, is it not a fact that India is the only country to have imposed a ban on the import and use of terminator technology? It certainly has. But let us try to understand whether this ban can hold on in the light of the global treaties. Article 27.3 (b) of the TRIPs Agreement makes it obligatory for member states to either have a sui generis system or patents on plant varieties or a combination of both. It also has made patenting of micro-organisms (and that includes genes) and the microbial processes effective from January 2000.
India has adopted the sui generis model, framing its plant varieties protection as per the UPOV 1978 provisions, which allows for ëresearchers exemptionà and ëfarmers privilegesÃ. However, UPOV itself is wanting to adopt its 1991 convention, which takes away ëresearchers exemptionà as well as the farmers right to save, exchange and sell the crop seeds. Once this is done, India will find it practically difficult to hold on to its Plant Varieties Protection and Farmers Rights (PVPFR) provisions. And on top of it, India will surely be dragged into the WTO dispute panel for not allowing terminator seed to be marketed in the country. In any case, bilateral scientific agreements and investment ventures have forced the patent regime for plants on many developing countries making TRIPs almost redundant.
If that is not enough, the scientific arm of the Convention on Biological Diversity -- the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) -- which met last in Montreal, has pushed the controversial terminator seed technology onto the battlefront. To ensure that no country is able to resist the entry of terminator, 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 commercialisation, the patent holders have already been preparing ground for its easy adoption. Both the joint patent holders for terminator have filed for patents in more than 87 countries, including India, and that too much in advance. Meanwhile, the seed multinational Syngenta has already began field trials with terminator seeds in Britain. Subsequently, over a dozen seed multinationals and biotechnology institutes have filed for patents on different versions of the Gene Use Restriction Technology (GRUTS).
An FAO panel of Eminent Experts on Ethics in Food and had last year concluded that terminator seeds are unethical. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) -- world's largest agricultural research network ? too had promised not to use the ëimmoralà terminator technology. But considering that both these organisations are in the ëgripà of the USDA, it is futile to expect any strong reaction from these white elephants. Notwithstanding the public posture of the CGIAR, the fact remains that most of the heads of the CG centers 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 centers.
In India, where seed replacement is confined to only ten per cent of the 105 million land-holdings, terminator will rake in a massive windfall for the seed companies and eventually to the USDA. 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. Already companies have announced their intention of targeting the cereals. This brings the curtain down on the kind of agriculture that farmers have been practicing for nearly ten thousand years. And we are being repeatedly told that USDA is committed to the cause of the farming community and building up food security. IsnÃt this the time to examine the role of USDA and its nexus with the biotechnology industry?
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 profits, has however come as a rude shock. Still worse, is the approval being granted by the public sector as well as the CBD, which many still consider to be the saviour and protector of the Third World's biological interests.
Unless the developing countries rise against the severely dangerous application of the 'cutting-edge' technology, as genetic manipulation is called, private seed companies will play havoc with the subsistence farmers and the sustainability of farming systems. #
(Devinder Sharma is a New Delhi-based food and trade policy analyst) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.