Two recent mailings from the Etc Group (The Action Group on Erosion,
Technology and Concentration) seem to me of urgent importance. They follow:
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Subject: ETC news - Terminator Patents
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 16:12:31 -0600
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
News Release:
31 January 2002
www.etcgroup.org
Sterile Harvest:
New Crop of Terminator Patents Threatens Food Sovereignty
The World's Largest Agrochemical and Seed Enterprises --Syngenta & DuPont --
Win Two New Patents on Genetic Seed Sterilization
The ETC group (formerly RAFI) announced today that the biotechnology
industry continues to aggressively pursue the development of
genetically modified seeds that are engineered for sterility. "We have
uncovered two new patents on Terminator technology," said Hope Shand,
Research Director of ETC group. "One patent is held by Dupont (the world's
largest seed corporation) and the other is held by Syngenta (the world's
largest agrochemical corporation)," said Shand.
Terminator has been widely condemned as an immoral technology that threatens
global food security, especially for the 1.4 billion people who depend on
farm-saved seed. If commercialized, the technology will prevent farmers from
saving seed from their harvest for planting the following season. In 1999,
due to widespread public opposition to Terminator seeds, both Monsanto
(soon-to-be-spun-off by Pharmacia) and AstraZeneca (now Syngenta) publicly
vowed not to commercialize
genetic seed sterilization technology.1
"Contrary to what some of these companies have pledged in the past, the Gene
Giants are refining the technology and moving forward to
commercialize Terminator seeds," warns Hope Shand, Research Director of the
ETC group. "Terminator is a real and present danger for global food security
and biodiversity - governments and civil society cannot afford to let
'suicide seeds' slip beneath their radar," said Shand.
Syngenta, the world's largest agribusiness firm, holds the largest arsenal
of Terminator patents to date.2 In 1999, Zeneca's R&D director wrote that
Terminator was "one piece of technology we did
not want to take forward, and the project was stopped in 1992."3 Why, then,
has the company continued to file for and win Terminator
patents since 1992? (The newest Syngenta patent issued on May 8, 2001. The
application date was March 22, 1997, long after Zeneca claims it stopped the
project.)
"Obviously, we can't rely on the goodwill of multinational seed and
agrochemical corporations to safeguard the public from the threat of
Terminator seeds. If these companies are serious about abandoning the
technology, they should surrender their patents to the control of the
UN Food & Agriculture Organization, agreeing not to develop the technology
themselves, nor allow others access to their technologies," advised Julie
Delahanty.
Two New Terminator Patents:
Dupont (Pioneer Hi-Bred International), US Patent 6,297,426, issued October
2, 2001. Title: Methods of mediating female fertility in plants. The patent
describes the identification and inactivation of a native gene critical to
female fertility. The gene is cloned, linked to an inducible promoter and
inserted into the plant. The result is a plant that is functionally female
sterile with inducible female fertility. (Note: Although the patent
describes the use of this
technology for facilitating production of hybrid seed, this approach
involves chemical control of female fertility, and its extension to other
seed lines. ETC group considers this a Terminator-type
technology.)
Syngenta (Zeneca), US Patent 6,228,643, issued May 8, 2001. Title: Promoter.
The patent describes a new promoter, isolated fromrapeseed, and the control
of plant traits (including fertility) that
can be inactivated and restored by application of a chemical inducer. In one
embodiment, the seeds will not germinate unless sprayed with a
chemical inducer.
Industry's "Green Gene" Defense of Terminator:
The new Syngenta patent does not describe its technology as a method to
prevent farmers from saving seed, but as an approach to prevent
unwanted gene flow from transgenic varieties. In theory, any seed that goes
where it shouldn't would die without the application of a chemical inducer.
According to the patent:
"A problem addressed by the present invention is the containment of crop
plants within the area of cultivation. Seeds of cultivated crop plants may
be conveyed outside the defined growing area by a number of routes(by birds
or small mammals or simply by being dropped during post-harvest transport of
a seed crop) where they assume the status of weeds, or they may remain as
vounteers in a subsequent crop in later years...It will be appreciated that
the problems of crop non-confinement mentioned above become more acute where
transgenic crops are involved... Ways to reduce viability of such hybrids
would limit the risk of transgene escape to non-crop species thus avoiding
the spreading of plants with enhanced invasiveness or weediness." -US patent
6,228,643
It is irresponsible and unacceptable to suggest that society must accept
genetic seed sterilization as a method for solving industry's
genetic pollution problem. Food security for poor people must not be
sacrificed to gain commercial acceptance for an unsafe and unproven
technology.
The biotech industry is reeling from the most recent debacles involving GM
pollution from transgenic plants. The Mexican Ministry
of Environment confirmed again last week that indigenous farmers' maize
varieties in Oaxaca and Puebla have been contaminated with DNA
from genetically modified (GM) maize. It is illegal to grow GM maize in
Mexico precisely because of the potential threat to the world's
primary center of maize diversity. In Canada, the escape of transgenes from
GM canola is a menace for organic farmers who cannot certify their canola
crops as GM-free. On January 10, 2002 organic farmers in Saskatchewan filed
a class action suit against Aventis and Monsanto.
"It is particularly alarming that the Gene Giants (and some governments) are
promoting Terminator under the guise of biosafety," explains Julie Delahanty
of ETC group. "The industry's primary goal is to gain market acceptance for
seed sterility as a biosafety tool, which will then give them carte blanche
to use it as a monopoly tool for maximizing seed industry profits," said
Delahanty.
Terminator on the Road to Rio+10:
New Terminator patents underscore industry's ongoing investment in the goal
of genetic seed sterilization and the urgent need for governments to ban
these technologies before they are commercialized.
Terminator is on the agenda this week at meetings in New York City, Porto
Alegre and Montreal. ETC group, together with civil society organizations
and governments, will hold briefings on the issue at the Rio+10 PrepCom in
New York, at the World Social Forum in Brazil, and in Montreal at an
informal consultation on the impacts of
Terminator on local communities and Farmers' Rights (held under the auspices
of the Convention on Biological Diversity).
In the months leading up to Rio+10, intergovernmental organizations have a
critical role to play in raising global awareness and
recommending actions to ban the technology.
COP6 - The Sixth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological
Diversity meets in The Hague, 8-26 April 2002. After numerous studies on
genetic trait control technology, COP6 should ban
Terminator as an anti-farmer technology that threatens biodiversity and food
sovereignty.
World Food Summit Five Years Later: When governments meet 10-13 June 2002 in
Rome they should re-affirm the findings of FAO's Panel of
Eminent Experts on Ethics, which concluded that Terminator seeds are
unethical, and recommend that member nations ban the technology.
World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10): Heads of State meeting in
South Africa in 26 August- 4 Sept. 2002 will have the opportunity to call
for a ban on Terminator technology as an immoral application of genetic
engineering that threatens biodiversity and food security.
Please go to our web site, www.etcgroup.org, to enter our April Fools' Day
contest. We need your help completing the sentence, "Using GM Terminator to
halt GM seed contamination is like..."
For more information:
Julie Delahanty, ETC group: (613) 262-8519 (cell) [log in to unmask]
Hope Shand, ETC group: (919) 960-5223 [log in to unmask]
Silvia Ribeiro, ETC group: [log in to unmask]
Notes:
1 Pharmacia, which currently owns 85% of Monsanto, will distribute its
Monsanto stock to shareholders in second half of 2002.
2 See RAFI/ETC group, "New Terminator Patent Goes to Syngenta," News
Release, 12 March 2001. www.etcgroup.org
3 Letter from Dr. D.A. Evans, R&D Director, Zeneca Agrochemicals, to Prof.
Richard Jefferson, CAMBIA, Australia, 24 Feb. 1999.
The Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, formerly RAFI, is
an international civil society organization headquartered in
Canada. The ETC group (pronounced Etcetera group) is dedicated to the
advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human rights.
www.etcgroup.org
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Subject: ETC Geno-Type: GM Contamination in the Bank?
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 16:26:11 -0600
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Geno-Type
Monday, February 4, 2002
www.etcgroup.org
(Please go to our web site if you prefer to download PDF version.)
The world's centres of crop genetic diversity are the part of biodiversity
that feeds people. The gene banks within those centres are critical for
global food security. Now, the MesoAmerican centre is contaminated with
genetically modified (GM) material and its most important gene bank may be
contaminated as well.
GM Pollution in the Bank?
Time for "Plan B"
Ten years ago at the Rio Earth Summit, Heads of State adopted a Biodiversity
Convention and wrestled with climate change strategies. World leaders
recognized that the frontline for future food security lies in those regions
of the tropics and subtropics that are centres of crop genetic diversity and
that internationally-held collections of farmers' seeds in gene banks are
the final defense against global warming. That was the plan.
Now we know that the Mesoamerican centre of agricultural biodiversity is
contaminated with GM maize and that it is only a matter of time before the
region's most vital gene bank is also infected. Genetically modified DNA
poses a special risk to centers of crop diversity if genes from GM crops
escape to related crops and their wild relatives. The greatest risk may
come from the next generation of GM plants that are now being developed. How
long before GM wheat is introduced in the Horn of Africa, the genetic
homeland of wheat? What risk will GM rice pose in Southeast Asia? GM
potatoes in the Andes? On the tenth anniversary of the Biodiversity
Convention and on the eve of the World Food Summit, governments must meet
this threat head-on. It's time for Plan B!
Mexican studies: When hundreds of indigenous Mexican farmers and about 60
civil society organizations met 23-24 January in Mexico City, few were
surprised to hear the Mexican Ministry of the Environment state that new
tests confirmed their findings of last year and that, in some extremely
remote regions of Oaxaca and Puebla, up to 60% of tested farmers' varieties
contained evidence of transgenic material. If these two states are
contaminated, then it stands to reason that the pollution has already spread
throughout Mesoamerica.
It is also, farmers agreed, only a matter of time before some of the world's
most essential seed banks - the cold storage facilities that guard millions
of crop seed samples that are either rare or extinct in the field - also
become infected.
Arguably the world's most important maize gene bank - certainly the most
internationally-accessible - is at the International Maize and Wheat
Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) just outside Mexico City. One of the original
Green Revolution centers, CIMMYT has been gathering and safeguarding
threatened maize and wheat seed for half a century. CIMMYT's interest is
not solely academic. The diversity of traditional maize varieties, and that
of its wild relatives, is the toolbox for future varieties and our best
defense against the erratic changes in crop pests and diseases that will
come with climate change. Scientists at CIMMYT, although cautious to take
a position on the implications of GM crop production, have been testing its
samples for bank contamination. Last October, following up on the news of
contamination in two Mexican states, the international center reported that
its initial surveys revealed no transgenic DNA. In December 2001 CIMMYT
again announced that subsequent screenings had found no contamination. (
http://www.cimmyt.org/whatiscimmyt/further_test.htm) More extensive studies
are continuing and many are convinced that it is only a matter of time -
possibly only days or weeks - before scientists find GM material in the
CIMMYT bank. If (or when) contamination is found, CIMMYT will post the
report on its website. The Centre has an "in-trust" agreement with the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which obliges it to ensure the
integrity of the maize and wheat collections.
All the alarms have been tripped for the Precautionary Principle. The
biotech industry has demonstrated repeatedly that current national
regulatory programs are inadequate and that industry cannot manage the
movement of transgenic materials. Now that the pollution has spread to at
least one centre of crop genetic diversity, the only appropriate political
and scientific solution is to call for a moratorium on the sowing of
transgenic crops unless and until governments have the real capacity to
regulate biotechnology. Since the battle for a global moratorium will take
sometime, the following proposals are interim, minimalist measures that can
be adopted in the next 18 weeks.
Plan B - Six Initiatives: -There is consensus that GM contamination has
occurred in the Mexican center of maize diversity. The real issue is what
will national and international authorities do about it? In the interim, we
are making the following proposals.
1. The biotech industry should announce an immediate moratorium on the
shipment of transgenic seed that is destined for that crop's centre of
genetic diversity and/or where wild relatives of the crop are known to
exist.
2. Commodity exporting and importing enterprises should take whatever steps
necessary to ensure that they do not inadvertently send GM material in an
unprocessed form to any country in a centre of crop diversity for a GM
species, and/or where wild relatives of the crop are known to exist.
3. Governments within centres of diversity should immediately undertake
their own evaluation of GM contamination and adopt procedures to ensure that
contamination does not take place through seed or commodity imports.
4. Governments should undertake studies of their national gene banks to
ensure that contamination is not already present and adopt measures to
ensure that new acquisitions and regeneration activities do not lead to
contamination.
5. As an urgent priority, the Director-General of FAO and the Chair of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) should
call upon industry and governments to implement a moratorium on GM seed and
commodity shipments, as well as field trials, in centres of diversity for GM
species. They should also ask governments to evaluate national gene banks
for GM material.
6. FAO and CGIAR should together launch an evaluation of international gene
banks whose materials are held in trust with FAO and adopt the necessary
measures and codes to ensure their continued genetic integrity.
Plan B's Schedule - Six Steps - 18 Weeks: The international community has
18 weeks to adopt a global plan of action to protect long term food security
and the centres of crop diversity. Six meetings between February 4 th in
Montreal and June 11 in Rome make it possible for governments to coordinate
an action plan:
1. CIMMYT and the Government of Mexico should report on the status of their
investigations to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) when its
subsidiary scientific panel meets in Montreal at the Ad Hoc Open-ended
Inter-sessional Working Group on Article 8(j) which will bring together
governments and representatives from indigenous farming communities. For
further information:
http://www.biodiv.org/programmes/socioeco/traditional/wg8j-02.asp
2. A more in-depth scientific discussion on the implications of
contamination in centres of diversity will be hosted by the Istituto
Agronomico per l'Oltremare in Florence, Italy February 7-9. The Gene Giants,
CIMMYT, scientists and civil society representatives will be present along
with FAO officials. The meeting should evaluate the state of scientific
knowledge and recommend what further investigations are necessary. For
further information, please go to http://biodiv.iao.florence.it/news.php
3. The Genetic Resources Policy Committee of the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) will meet the week of February
13th in Los Banos, Philippines. That meeting should adopt proposals for the
global monitoring of centres of diversity and key national and international
gene banks. Their recommendations should be forwarded both to FAO and to
the Biodiversity Convention. Please go to http://www.cgiar.org for further
information.
4. The international scientific community and civil society are meeting in
Alexandria, Egypt March 16-18 for a major evaluation of the impact of
biotechnology on food, health and the environment. The gathering is an
excellent opportunity for the major actors to consider the CGIAR
recommendations and to support specific initiatives for FAO, CGIAR and the
Biodiversity Convention. http://www.egyptbiotech.com/2002
5. The world's governments meet in The Hague, Netherlands, from April 8-19
under the auspices of the Biodiversity Convention. From April 21-26, the
CBD will review work on the BioSafety Protocol including Mexico's specific
concerns regarding liability and the wider debate on labeling. The
environment ministries present should propose a programme of action to
protect the centres of civersity from contamination. For the agenda of the
CBD COP VI please go to: http://www.biodiv.org/meetings/cop-06.asp
6. Because the heart of the issue is one of food security, the programme
proposed by the CBD should be conveyed to the World Food Summit Five Years
Later that will bring world and agricultural leaders together in Rome from
June 10-13. The decisions reached in Rome should be the basis for
national and international legislation. For information on the World Food
Summit please go to http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsummit/
Six reasons to stop contamination: Peculiarly, some scientists (and, less
peculiarly, most Gene Giants) seem not to understand why GM contamination in
banks or centres of diversity is a concern. Here are six reasons:
1. Moral repugnance: International Research Centres that fully understand
that certain cultures are opposed to eating certain species must also
realize that many people in many cultures and societies are morally opposed
to transgenic species - especially as food. People (and sovereign nations)
have the absolute right to say "no" to transgenics and scientists and
governments must protect their right.
2. Environmental safety: There is a strong and growing scientific debate
over the way in which transgenes might, immediately and over several
generations, perform in new species and how they might affect other
organisms. This concern is nowhere more important than in centres of crop
diversity where food security is at risk. The Precautionary Principle
demands that GM contamination in such centres be prevented.
3. Food safety: Government regulators and scientists do not have a stellar
record when it comes to GM food safety. For example, in September 2000 it
was US biotech activists who first disclosed that hundreds of food products
in the US contained illegal traces of Aventis's genetically engineered
Starlink maize (the insecticidal toxin Cry9c). StarLink was approved by the
US government for livestock feed, but not for human consumption, because of
concerns that it could cause an allergic reaction in some people. The GM
contamination in Mexico illustrates that it is only a matter of time before
GM traits (or promoters or selectable markers) invade centres of diversity
and the diets of the poor. It is not known what impact these traits (and
especially the next generation of GM traits) will have on food safety.
4. Trust compromise: The FAO-CGIAR Agreement covers more than a half
million seed samples in eleven of the world's most important gene banks.
All are located in centres of crop diversity. The International
Agricultural Research Centres are pledged to safeguard the trust material.
This includes the difficult task of keeping the material free of GM
pollution. If the banks become polluted, GM material could spread to
researchers and breeders around the world. Both FAO and CGIAR are obliged
to act to protect the integrity of the trust material.
5. Market security: Farmers wishing to market organic or GM-free
commodities are compromised if GM pollen contaminates their crops. Markets
and income are lost. The market for GM-free material is growing and
important for many farmers in many countries.
6. Monopoly risk: By definition, GM traits are patented. If patented DNA
materializes in FAO-CGIAR Trust collections it could compromise how gene
banks are able to manage and distribute germplasm. It could also lead to
lawsuits against some breeders who receive patented material from gene banks
and unknowingly use the material in varieties where the patents are valid.
Fear of patent lawsuits could constrain access and use of gene bank
material.
The Bottomline: Contamination portends a major long-term threat to world
food security. The pressure is heavily on CGIAR and its 16 international
agricultural research centers - of which CIMMYT is one. Eleven research
centers have major gene banks. CGIAR is gearing up to launch a major
fundraising campaign that will create an endowment for the gene bank
collections. Potential donors will want the CGIAR to address the likelihood
of gene bank contamination squarely and will be less than comfortable to
think that they are paying for storage of GM traits that could make future
germplasm exchange problematic. FAO, with its new International Treaty on
Plant Genetic Resources and the Trust Agreement with CGIAR gene banks, is
ultimately responsible for the integrity of these collections and must be
prepared to act decisively.
The Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, formerly RAFI, is
an international civil society organization headquartered in Canada. The ETC
group (pronounced Etcetera group) is dedicated to the advancement of
cultural and ecological diversity and human rights. www.etcgroup.org
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