Book Review
Introduction
In Part 8 of Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed we learn that: “So far, only two GM traits have gained significant market share, one conferring resistance to a broad spectrum herbicide Roundup (RR) and another making plants poisonous to insects by means of a soil microbe Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Within a few years plants with these GM traits – soybeans, maize, oilseed rape, and cotton – have grown to cover an area of about 90 million hectares annually, concentrated in five “GM countries” (the US, Canada, Argentina, Brasil, and China plant more than 90% of the world’s GM crops). The impact of these GMOs on seed diversity as well as on the overall biodiversity in those areas is devastating. A single multinational company, Monsanto, holds the patents for 90% of all commercial GM plant traits.” “The advent of genetic engineering led to the almost-worldwide introduction of industrial patents on life forms. Those patents put exclusive and total private control over discoveries, now redefined as “inventions,” into private hands.” “This technology has reached its ultimate development with the advent of “terminator seeds” (also called GURTs), which produce seed that is sterile or suicidal by nature or only reproduces upon the addition of certain external inputs.” “Small seed companies as well as entire national seed collections and institutions are being bought up for comparatively moderate prices by agro-chemical multi-nationals.”
MANIFESTOS ON THE FUTURE OF FOOD AND SEED
EDITED BY VANDANA SHIVA
SOUTH END PRESS 2007
PART VIII
THE MANIFESTOS
GENETIC ENGINEERING
In the mid-1990s, the first genetically engineered seeds were commercialised. Genetic engineering technology transfers the DNA sequences for individual traits in ways that could not occur naturally. The risks involved in this technology for human health and the environment and especially the long-term effects on biodiversity are unpredictable. Once released into the environment, these genetically modified (GM) plants reproduce and outcross to wild relatives and it becomes impossible to recall them. Scandals over the illegal release of some GM crops showed that it is even hard to control such traits within the commercial product chain. Ordinary seeds are frequently contaminated with GM traits in areas where genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are planted. This poses a massive and immediate threat to farmers wishing to continue producing GMO-free products in response to the growing rejection of GM foods by consumers worldwide. So far, only two GM traits have gained significant market share, one conferring resistance to a broad spectrum herbicide Roundup (RR) and another making plants poisonous to insects by means of a soil microbe Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Within a few years plants with these GM traits – soybeans, maize, oilseed rape, and cotton – have grown to cover an area of about 90 million hectares annually, concentrated in five “GM countries” (the US, Canada, Argentina, Brasil, and China plant more than 90% of the world’s GM crops). The impact of these GMOs on seed diversity as well as on the overall biodiversity in those areas is devastating. A single multinational company, Monsanto, holds the patents for 90% of all commercial GM plant traits.
CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SEED: A THREAT TO SEED FREEDOM & THE RIGHTS OF FARMERS
Until very recently, seed has resisted basic principles of capitalist market laws, the most important barrier being the nature of the seed, which reproduces itself and multiplies. Thus, seed has long been both a means of production as well as the product itself.
Research and development for seed improvement has long been a public domain and government activity for the common good. However, private capital started to flow into seed production and took it over as a sector of economy, creating an artificial split between the two aspects of the seed’s nature: its role as means of production and its role as product. This process gained pace after the invention of hybrid breeding of maize in the late 1920s. Today most maize seed cultivated are hybrids. The companies that sell it are able to withhold the distinct parent lines from farmers, and the grain that it produces is not suited for seed saving and replanting. The combination guarantees that farmers will have to buy more seed from the company each season. In the 1990s the extension of patent laws as the only intellectual property rights tool into the area of seed varieties started to create a growing market for private seed companies. Previously, intellectual property rights had had a much milder effect on the seed market. They were based on the concept of plant-variety rights, under which the farmer could use purchased seed for further sowing and breeding and could freely use the yield of seed for saving and replanting. The farmer was only restricted from commercially reselling the saved seeds.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS & SEED MONOPOLIES
The advent of genetic engineering led to the almost-worldwide introduction of industrial patents on life forms. Those patents put exclusive and total private control over discoveries, now redefined as “inventions,” into private hands. Under these patent laws, seeds are entirely subordinated to a system of intellectual property rights (IPRs), which by law – though not necessarily in reality – convert such seeds into non-renewable production inputs that farmers must repurchase every year. In addition, over the past two decades, hybrid seed production has been extended to plants previously inaccessible to this technology. This technology has reached its ultimate development with the advent of “terminator seeds” (also called GURTs), which produce seed that is sterile or suicidal by nature or only reproduces upon the addition of certain external inputs. Meanwhile, seeds as well as individually isolated DNA sequences have become subject to industrial patenting. Plant-variety protection under the Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) system has also expanded to include fees for replanting of seeds and to incorporate industrial patent rights on GMOs. The WTO, under its Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, obliges member states to introduce general IPR systems on plants. In Addition, following the breakdown of WTO talks in July 2006, industrialized countries have been intensifying the imposition of IPR laws on developing countries through bilateral trade agreements. These are further undermining the potential of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, an international agreement to secure exchange of seed under the emerging global IPR regime.
The review of the TRIPS agreement, including Article 27.3(b) on plants, seed and biodiversity set for 1999 has been systematically ignored. Formal submissions have been made by many countries of the South to exclude life forms, including seeds, from patenting. This review of TRIPS, neglected for too long, must be undertaken as a matter of the highest priority.
PRIVATIZATION OF SEED
The artificial split of seed into production tool and product and its transformation into a pure commodity have been extended to most areas of industrial agriculture today. Though this process has not taken place without controversial discussions and fights, especially in rural areas of developing countries, an unprecedented global concentration of private seed companies is taking place. Small seed companies as well as entire national seed collections and institutions are being bought up for comparatively moderate prices by agro-chemical multi-nationals. For these companies, seeds are but one component of their sales packages of agricultural and chemical input and a further strategy to vertically integrate the global market of agricultural commodities, whether used a food of for non-food purposes.
The transformation of a common resource into a commodity, of a self-regenerative resource into mere “input” under the control of the corporate sector, changes the nature of the seed and of agriculture itself. It robs peasants of their means of livelihood, and the seed becomes an instrument of poverty and under-development, one that has displaced huge numbers of farmers.
Public funding for seed development and conservation has been steadily dwindling. It has reached such low levels that even major seed collections are under threat and increasingly depend upon so-called public-private partnerships. Such partnerships open the way for private seed companies to further expand their IPR-based control over the global seed stock. While public seed collections are obliged to provide free samples of their holdings, private companies can choose not to participate in this system of free exchange and abuse it for their own interests. In addition, every new step of corporate concentration of seed stocks brings about a reduction of seed varieties as well as a reduction of the number of breeders and scientists maintaining these seed stocks. There is a clear relation between the increase in investment in the digitalisation of seed information at the DNA and genomic level and a parallel decrease in investment in on-field research and knowledge of seed and seed varieties in different ecosystems.
PART TWO
A NEW PARADIGM FOR SEED