American companies have created patents for Basmati rice, Chapati flour, Turmeric, Neem leaves and now anyone who uses these patents would have to pay royalty. Reminds of British East India Company.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2004/03/article02.shtml
‘The Terminator’ Strikes Again: India’s Wheat the Victim
By Darryl D’Monte
08/03/2004
Each adult in an average middle class north Indian family consumes around six to eight chapatis every day
Indians might soon be forced to pay a royalty to the world’s largest Genetically Modified (GM) seed company to use the flour of one of the country’s traditional types of wheat, Nap Hal, for making chapatis, unleavened flat wheat cakes that are the staple cereal in north India and in all of Pakistan.
Monsanto, a US multinational biotech company, obtained a patent known as Galahad 7 from the Europe Patent Office in Munich last May, giving the company exclusive rights over this traditional wheat variety.
According to Suman Sahai, who heads an NGO called Gene Campaign in Delhi, “Nap Hal has been known to the food processing industry since the 1980s because of its special features.” It possesses less gluten, which makes this dough less elastic and therefore ideal for making crisp biscuits and crackers.
Galahad 7 is a GM variety of wheat that incorporates the distinctive genes of Nap Hal. By isolating this combination of genes, a team of Monsanto scientists led by Peter Ivor Payne was able to extract commercial value from a commonly grown variety of wheat.
Monsanto obtained this genetic material, known as germplasm, when it acquired the Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever’s cereal division and laboratory in Cambridge, UK, for $550 million five years ago. According to the newly-launched New Delhi magazine, Tehelka, the laboratory had worked on different varieties of Indian wheat. Ironically, it had accessed the Indian wheat germplasm from a publicly-funded British gene bank. This material was obtained by this bank as part of its ongoing agricultural research as a government-funded institution and the bank had no commercial motive in acquiring it. Monsanto inherited six such patent rights.
A Long Tradition
Traditionally, farmers have selectively bred crops and animals and crossbred them with other related species to produce varieties with different genes. This
has been happening for hundreds of years: such breeding is a time-consuming process because it takes several generations to obtain a desired trait and exclude unwanted characteristics. In many developing countries, particularly in South Asia, such methods are still employed by the majority of farmers for a wide range of crops.
Most crop plants have been developed either within farming communities or by publicly-funded agricultural institutes, such as the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi. The high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice that India developed in the 1960s, as part of what is known worldwide as the Green Revolution, were based on such techniques.
In recent years, scientists have resorted to genetic engineering, under which entirely new characteristics, including genes originally found in unrelated plants, have been introduced into crops. This use of biotechnology speeds up the breeding process. The US is the world’s largest producer of genetically modified (GM) crops: more than 88 million acres were planted with such crops in 2001, accounting for almost 70% of the world’s total. However, other scientists have raised fears regarding GM crops and animals, and so have environmentalists and consumers, particularly in Europe.
Disaster in the Making
Before a nine-month deadline for inviting objections to the patent obtained by Monsanto expired on February 22, Greenpeace filed a case against it at the Europe Patent Office. More recently, the well-known Indian environmental activist and indefatigable campaigner against GM crops, Vandana Shiva, filed a petition in the Supreme Court in Delhi. The outcome of these cases is awaited.
Krishan Bir Chaudhary of the Bharat Krishak Samaj (Indian Farmers’ Association) told Tehelka: “We are 100 per cent certain that they (Monsanto) will use these patents for their pecuniary benefits and the Indian farmers and public are in danger of losing their natural right over wheat grown and consumed in the country.”
As things stand, a definite disaster is in the making if Indians are forced to pay a royalty to the multinational company for using Nap Hal, considering that each adult in an average middle class north Indian family consumes around six to eight chapatis every day.
Biopirates from the North
Developing countries have accused the global North of “biopiracy” - using their genetic material without paying for it and then patenting the products. This is true particularly of food and medicine. Even today, some 40 per cent of US drugs are based on plants, many only available in tropical countries. Four years ago, the retail value of drugs derived from plants by US pharmaceutical companies was put at $43 billion a year. The biotech and drug companies claim that they have invested in research and deserve to be compensated for this. Without patents, they would have no incentive to spend on Research & Development (R&D).
At the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, President George Bush Sr had refused to sign the biodiversity convention on the ground that this would adversely affect biotech companies. The convention recognises that farming communities have plant breeders’ rights and deserve to be compensated for their painstaking efforts over the years. The US administration sees such moves as an infringement of intellectual property rights.
The very fact that multinationals are patenting varieties of such staples of food is cause for disquiet, because there are obviously enormous profits to be made on this sector. There have been previous attempts to patent turmeric, which was struck down, while in the case of Basmati rice, which is a fragrant variety grown in India and Pakistan alone, a compromise was reached. Governments of developing countries hardly possess the expertise or resources to track such moves.
Indian Farmers Hit Hard
A few years ago, Monsanto attracted worldwide controversy because it acquired a patent from a US company and the US Department of Agriculture on what Greenpeace and other critics nicknamed “terminator technology”. This imparts an in-built sterility to seeds, which compels farmers to go back to the market for their needs. In poor countries, farmers traditionally save part of their seeds, which they do not sell or consume themselves, for the next season. After this created an international furore, Monsanto was forced to climb down and announce that it was not proceeding to develop this technology.
As it is, poor farmers in drought-hit Indian states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have in recent years been committing suicide because they are so severely in debt due to fertiliser and pesticide dealers, who have been raising their hopes of achieving bumper crops. In Karnataka alone, according to official statistics, 650 farmers have taken their lives in the last 10 months. In South Asia, one of the two poorest regions of the world, the introduction of capital-intensive farming, which calls for expensive inputs like chemicals and tractors, without adequate government support and subsidies, can prove disastrous in some cases.
Darryl D’Monte is the founder President of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists and is serving a second term till 2003. He is also the Chairperson of the Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI) and a syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has published two books: “Temples or Tombs? Industry versus Environment: Three Controversies”, Center for Science & Environment, New Delhi, 1985 and “Ripping the Fabric: The Decline of Mumbai and its Mills”, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2002. He was previously the Resident Editor of the “Indian Express” (1979-1981) and of the “Times of India” (1988-1994) in Mumbai. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: [email protected]