Lack of obligation to publish detection methods for patented new GMOs will unleash patent infringement lawsuits on farmers

Yesterday, Poland presented a new "improved" proposal to the Council of the EU on the deregulation of so-called "new" plant GMOs obtained by new genomic techniques (NGTs). ECVC (European Coordination Via Campesina) welcomes the importance given to the issue of patents, which are the main concern of farmers, but says the solutions proposed by Poland will not be able to solve it.

ECVC says this latest proposal does not provide for any obligation to publish the detection and identification processes for genetically modified and patented plants. These are wrongly presented as "similar" to "natural" or conventionally bred plants, which should never be patented. Farmers and traditional breeders will therefore not be able to know whether the conventional seeds they have bred, cultivated or marketed, contain (naturally or as a result of unavoidable genetic contamination) a genetic sequence presented as "similar" to a patented sequence obtained by NGT. If this is the case, they may be prosecuted for patent infringement and their produce may be seized. They will then have to prove that their seeds already contained the now-patented gene prior to the patent claim. However, it is not possible for small scale farmers or breeders to obtain such proof, as they do not have the means to sequence the genome of all the seeds they cultivate or market.

ECVC adds that in this third proposal submitted by Poland since the beginning of its Presidency, the provisions on the verification procedure and transparency on patents, which had been introduced in the January proposal, are made optional or declarative only, further weakening a text that already did not address farmers' concerns at all.

ECVC says that beyond this unacceptable risk of widespread biopiracy of all conventional seeds by a few multinationals - the only ones with the technical and legal capacity to produce and market these "new" GMOs - Poland does not challenge the suppression by the Commission of health and environmental assessments and of labelling for consumers. It also does not challenge the impossibility of post-marketing monitoring and/or removal of these GMOs from the market, in the event of post-marketing health or environmental damage – an impossibility that results from the lack of publication of detection and identification processes of these genetically modified plants. This undermines the precautionary principle and the right of Member States to refuse these new GMOs.

ECVC calls on the Member States of the European Union to reject this new proposal, as well as the Commission's initial proposal, and to maintain the application of Directive 2001/18. It is the only legislation that is fit to guarantee the protection of peasant and organic agrarian systems, human health, the environment and food sovereignty against the risk of control of the entire food chain by the patents of four or five multinationals, which already control more than 60% of the world seed market.

Source: ECVC