In response to our item yesterday about the enormous waste of public and foundation monies on GM crops, Craig Sams has written to point out, "the fact that the US govt funds research and that USDA employees then get royalties from the patents on that research is an outrage. How on earth can they be expected to make rational choices when a pro-GM choice [which is patentable] can increase their income up to the annual cap of $150,000 a year and a non-GM choice leaves them with nothing but their salary?"

Here's Craig's supporting evidence. The Terminator information is given added interest with Terminator being one of the issues currently up for discussion at COP7.
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The Terminator gene in particular, but any USDA discovered gene construct in general, can generate huge profits for USDA researchers, as outlined in the following two extracts:

From:  http://www.sustainable-city.org/articles/terminat.htm

On March 3, 1998, the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Delta and Pine Land Company, a Mississippi firm and the largest cotton seed company in the world, announced that they had jointly developed and received a patent (US patent number 5,723,765) on a new, agricultural biotechnology. Benignly titled, "Control of Plant Gene Expression”, the new patent will permit its owners and licensees to create sterile seed by cleverly and selectively programming a plant’s DNA to kill its own embryos. The patent applies to plants and seeds of all species. The result? If saved at harvest for future crops, the seed produced by these plants will not grow. Pea pods, tomatoes, peppers, heads of wheat and ears of corn will essentially become seed morgues. In one broad, brazen stroke of his hand, man will have irretrievably broken the plant-to-seed-to-plant-to-seed cycle, THE cycle that supports most life on the planet. No seed, no food -- unless -- unless you buy more seed. This is obviously good for seed companies. As it turns out, it is also good for the US Department of Agriculture.

In a recent interview with RAFI, the Canada-based Rural Advancement Foundation International, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokesman, Willard Phelps, explained that the USDA wants this technology to be "widely licensed and made expeditiously available to many seed companies." The goal, he said, is "to increase the value of proprietary seed owned by US seed companies and to open up new markets in Second and Third World countries." The USDA and Delta & Pine Land Co. have applied for patents on the terminator technology in at least 78 countries! Once the technology is commercialized, the USDA will earn royalties of about 5% of net sales. "I think it will be profitable for USDA," Phelps said. (Royalties? Profits? For a Department of the US Federal Government? What’s wrong with this picture?)

Upper limits on earnings:

There’s a ceiling of $150,000 per annum of royalty income that a USDA researcher is permitted to earn.  The way people in the private sector get around it is to defer part of the income or treat it in some way so that it ends up as part of the researcher’s pension. Details at: http://www.newscientistjobs.com/site/ns/recnews/article.jsp?id=recruit73

Another way in which the USDA differs from an academic institution is in its relationship with industry. The USDA is eager to pass technology on to the private sector, and researchers work closely with companies. But they are not allowed to create start-ups the way many university professors are now encouraged to do. Once an idea is ripe for implementation, the USDA casts about for an industrial partner. Then, typically, the government retains the patent and the company gets the first licensing rights to the technology. Researchers cannot invest in these companies, but they do get a 25 per cent share of the licensing royalties up to a maximum of $150,000 a year.

Craig