Posted
02nd July 2001
A Global Campaign against Biopiracy
By
Jorge Pisa
Greenpeace International and other non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) charged Monday that transnational corporations are ''pirating''
genetic resources from the developing South, a practice the
groups say threatens global food security. Private companies
and research institutes have been able to patent life forms
and their genetic composition since intellectual property laws
were passed that include living organisms within their scope,
according to the NGOs. As a result, the free exchange of seeds
and other materials for plant reproduction are at stake, posing
a threat to world food security, said the activists.
Delegates from the 160 countries that make up the Commission
for Genetic Resources, a body of the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO), are in Rome this week to study
an international treaty that would maintain the genetic content
of the world's main food crops within the public domain. ''Open
access'' to genetic resources means access to food and to the
means to produce it, said Christoph Then, an expert on patents
and spokesman for Greenpeace, in a message intended for the
Commission. In the last 10 years, multinational chemical firms
like the US-based DuPont, ''world leader in biopiracy,'' commented
Then, have patented seeds and foodstuffs. This has been key
in launching an international race to control global food production,
he warned.
This,
in turn, has led to biopiracy: private companies from wealthy
countries pillage genetic resources from the developing South,
a practice that harms development and the environment, the activist
told a press conference Monday. Once they have worked out the
genetic composition of these resources, or have modified them
in the laboratory, the transnationals then claim the plants,
seeds, and even the harvested crops as their intellectual property,
Then pointed out. If the free flow of reproductive materials,
such as seeds, is interrupted, the poorest on the planet will
suffer, in other words, the small farmers and peasants from
the developing South, who are the backbone of global food security,
stated Henk Hobbelink, of Genetics Resources Action International
(GRAIN). In August 2000, the European Patent Office received
a petition from DuPont for a patent covering all varieties of
maize that contain specified quantities of oil and of oleic
acid, reported Greenpeace and the German Catholic Church's development
organisation, Misereor.
The patent application covers the planting, harvesting and any
use of these varieties, including their use for food. If the
petition gets the green light from the European authorities,
DuPont would hold a virtual monopoly over a broad range of maize
varieties. For now, Greenpeace and the Mexican government have
succeeded in blocking approval of this maize patent, forcing
consideration of the application into a deliberation process
within the European Patent Office. In Mexico and Central America,
for example, there is an enormous diversity of maize varieties.
It is a plant that has played a fundamental role in the economy
and in food production in the region. ''The varieties with the
characteristics specified by DuPont exist there and have been
used for a long time,'' said Then. With the approval of the
patent, farmers who grow maize with high oil and oleic acid
content could be forced to plant different seeds or to pay for
the patent rights on their harvests.
Greenpeace
and seven other NGOs are demanding an end to intellectual property
rights that limit access to genetic resources and an end to
patents on seeds and plants. If the Commission for Genetic Resources
reaches an agreement on exempting the world's principal food
crops from patents, the treaty would be sent to the World Food
Conference to be held in November at the FAO headquarters in
the Italian capital. The United States, Canada and New Zealand
have already voiced opposition to the accord. But the Group
of 77 - the bloc of developing countries -, most African nations
and the European Union are backing the creation of a specialised
multilateral body to handle the matter...
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