Monsanto Biopiracy

ed2hands

Looks like Monsanto are up to their usual tricks again...
Surprise surprise.

How India squared up to Monsanto’s 'biopiracy'

Following allegations of defying India's Biological Diversity Act (BDA), Monsanto faces a lawsuit from the Indian government, reports Rosie Spinks

What do Agent Orange, DDT, aspartamine, bovine growth hormone, GMOs and now, biopiracy all share in common? Other than being the stuff of environmentalists’ nightmares, each one owes its provenance to a single source: the biotechnology giant Monsanto.

The Indian government recently took an unprecedented step in filing suit against the corporation’s joint venture in India (known as Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech Limited) for the 'unlawful' attempt to obtain and modify the indigenous crop brinjal. Known elsewhere as aubergine or eggplant, brinjal is cultivated and consumed by many Indians, with roughly 2,500 unique varieties.

This commercialisation of indigenous knowledge is an offence known as biopiracy. In 2002, the Indian governent enacted the Biological Diversity Act (BDA) to prevent the plunder of the nation’s rich agricultural biodiversity, which is among the highest in the world.

The BDA requires that any modification of a plant for commercial or research purposes must first be approved by India’s National Biosafety Authority (NBA), a step Mahyco-Monsanto is accused of bypassing in efforts to develop their own genetically modified (GM) variety called Bt brinjal.

While some anti-GM activists in both India and the West may hail the Indian government’s decision to stand up to the corporate behemoth as activism, Suman Sahai, scientist and director of the Indian NGO Gene Project, says this is a straightforward case of a violation of due process of law.
‘[This] has got nothing to do with activism. Governments should not act as firebrand’, Sahai said. ‘There was a violation of Indian law which has to be penalised’.
A representative for Mahyco said however that while the company has been developing brinjal varieties, it not been involved in any unlawful activity. 'It is reiterated that Mahyco has not indulged in any activity which would be a violation of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002', the spokesman said.

Putting a patent on life

The issue of granting intellectual property rights (IPRs) to life forms—such as seeds, plants, or animals—is a contentious one worldwide. Critics say it’s impossible to define when the creation of such a thing took place, and that granting patent rights for a crop such as brinjal negates generations of farmers who, using conventional plant breeding techniques, have managed to develop successful cultivars.

In a press release, the Environmental Support Group, a Bangalore-based NGO, endorsed the NBA’s decision for this very reason.

‘The [BDA] law mandates that when biodiversity is to be accessed in any manner for commercial, research and other uses, local communities who have protected local varieties and cultivars for generations must be consulted and if they consent, benefits must accrue to them’, the press release states. ‘The NBA must suspend action on all applications by any of the agencies involved in biopiracy seeking access to any biological resource of India’.

A report on IPRs in the farming world released by the UK-based Food Ethics Council endorsed the idea that agricultural patents and IPRs should be treated differently in the developing world, particularly in nations where subsistence farming is the major source of livelihood for many people.

‘The exclusionary element of patents [means that] … privileges [are] granted by society to a few [people] to exclude the rest and enrich the few’, the report states.

In recent years, the IPR laws in countries such as the US have lead to David and Goliath-type lawsuits, where Monsanto has taken legal action against individual farmers who are found to have patented GM seeds growing on their farms, even if accidental wind pollination was the cause.



In addition, farmers who purchase genetically modified seeds from companies like Monsanto or Syngenta are not permitted to save their seed for the next season, as is traditional agricultural practise; instead, farmers must purchase the patented seed each and every year, ensuring business for Monsanto and companies like it.

‘Badge of shame’

Monsanto’s unpopularity is especially high in India. Over the past decade and a half, government statistics estimate that as many as 250,000 farmers have committed suicide after failed cotton harvests left them saddled with debt. In the hopes of high yields from GM seeds, countless farmers borrowed money to purchase Monsanto’s patented Bt cotton-seeds, activists claim.

Indian activist and scientist Suman Sahai says that the company cannot be solely blamed for this immense tragedy, as other systemic problems exist within the Indian farming system. However, she does believe they should be held accountable in a different way.

‘I think [the farmer suicides] is biggest badge of shame that India wears today. To have mass farmer suicide in a country with a tradition of agrarian livelihoods is horrific’, Sahai says. ‘All of India’s farmer suicides cannot be laid at Monsanto’s door, however they should be held to account for bringing in what they knew were not very good cotton performers [in an effort to enter the Indian market first]. That’s criminal negligence’.

Sahai says that India is a target of seed and biotech companies such as Monsanto because it is the only nation to explicitly give rights to farmers when it comes to ownership of plant varieties, something these companies wish to reverse.

'Even if a breeder holds a right [or patent] to a variety he cannot prevent the farmer to produce [or save] the seed for himself’, Sahai explains. ‘This is acknowledgement of the fact that no breeder can produce seed from thin air—it doesn’t fall from the heavens, it builds upwards from many generations of farmers’ contributions’.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1087730/how_india_squared_up_to_monsantos_biopiracy.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryiu5nd3Ih4

ed2hands

From todays Guardian:


GM crops promote superweeds, food insecurity and pesticides, say NGOs

Report finds genetically modified crops fail to increase yields let alone solve hunger, soil erosion and chemical-use issues


Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of "superweeds", according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.
The so-called miracle crops, which were first sold in the US about 20 years ago and which are now grown in 29 countries on about 1.5bn hectares (3.7bn acres) of land, have been billed as potential solutions to food crises, climate change and soil erosion, but the assessment finds that they have not lived up to their promises.


The report claims that hunger has reached "epic proportions" since the technology was developed. Besides this, only two GM "traits" have been developed on any significant scale, despite investments of tens of billions of dollars, and benefits such as drought resistance and salt tolerance have yet to materialise on any scale.


Most worrisome, say the authors of the Global Citizens' Report on the State of GMOs, is the greatly increased use of synthetic chemicals, used to control pests despite biotech companies' justification that GM-engineered crops would reduce insecticide use.
In China, where insect-resistant Bt cotton is widely planted, populations of pests that previously posed only minor problems have increased 12-fold since 1997. A 2008 study in the International Journal of Biotechnology found that any benefits of planting Bt cotton have been eroded by the increasing use of pesticides needed to combat them.


Additionally, soya growers in Argentina and Brazil have been found to use twice as much herbicide on their GM as they do on conventional crops, and a survey by Navdanya International, in India, showed that pesticide use increased 13-fold since Bt cotton was introduced.


The report, which draws on empirical research and companies' own statements, also says weeds are now developing resistance to the GM firms' herbicides and pesticides that are designed to be used with their crops, and that this has led to growing infestations of "superweeds", especially in the US.
Ten common weeds have now developed resistance in at least 22 US states, with about 6m hectares (15m acres) of soya, cotton and corn now affected.


Consequently, farmers are being forced to use more herbicides to combat the resistant weeds, says the report. GM companies are paying farmers to use other, stronger, chemicals, they say. "The genetic engineering miracle is quite clearly faltering in farmers' fields," add the authors.


The companies have succeeded in marketing their crops to more than 15 million farmers, largely by heavy lobbying of governments, buying up local seed companies, and withdrawing conventional seeds from the market, the report claims. Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta, the world's three largest GM companies, now control nearly 70% of global seed sales. This allows them to "own" and sell GM seeds through patents and intellectual property rights and to charge farmers extra, claims the report.


The study accuses Monsanto of gaining control of over 95% of the Indian cotton seed market and of massively pushing up prices. High levels of indebtedness among farmers is thought to be behind many of the 250,000 deaths by suicide of Indian farmers over the past 15 years.
The report, which is backed by Friends of the Earth International, the Center for Food Safety in the US, Confédération Paysanne, and the Gaia foundation among others, also questions the safety of GM crops, citing studies and reports which indicate that people and animals have experienced apparent allergic reactions.


But it suggests scientists are loath to question the safety aspects for fear of being attacked by establishment bodies, which often receive large grants from the companies who control the technology.
Monsanto disputes the report's findings: "In our view the safety and benefits of GM are well established. Hundreds of millions of meals containing food from GM crops have been consumed and there has not been a single substantiated instance of illness or harm associated with GM crops."
It added: "Last year the National Research Council, of the US National Academy of Sciences, issued a report, The Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States, which concludes that US farmers growing biotech crops 'are realising substantial economic and environmental benefits – such as lower production costs, fewer pest problems, reduced use of pesticides, and better yields – compared with conventional crops'."


David King, the former UK chief scientist who is now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University, has blamed food shortages in Africa partly on anti-GM campaigns in rich countries.
But, the report's authors claim, GM crops are adding to food insecurity because most are now being grown for biofuels, which take away land from local food production.


Vandana Shiva, director of the Indian organisation Navdanya International, which co-ordinated the report, said: "The GM model of farming undermines farmers trying to farm ecologically. Co-existence between GM and conventional crops is not possible because genetic pollution and contamination of conventional crops is impossible to control.
"Choice is being undermined as food systems are increasingly controlled by giant corporations and as chemical and genetic pollution spread. GM companies have put a noose round the neck of farmers. They are destroying alternatives in the pursuit of profit."

FreudianSlippers

In all honesty, I'm not convinced this is a conspiracy theory

ed2hands

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

In all honesty, I'm not convinced this is a conspiracy theory

Can i ask you to which aspect you're referring to? Is it the biopiracy aspect or maybe you think the thread is not suited to this forum? Please elaborate good sir/madam.

humanji

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

In all honesty, I'm not convinced this is a conspiracy theory

I'd disagree with that. Monsanto are as close to a comic book villain as you get in the real world. They have absolutely no redeeming qualities. What they seem to have been trying here, and which they have done in many other countries, is modifying a crop so they can market it. But as happens with most crops, cross contamenation occurs with non-GM crops. Monsanto then sue the farmers of the contaminated non-GM crops for using their product. The Farmers can't pay. Monsanto takes their farm. Rinse and repeat.

It's kind of a terrifying prospect that there may be a time when you have to pay royalties to someone to grow some veg in your garden.

shedweller

humanji wrote: »

It's kind of a terrifying prospect that there may be a time when you have to pay royalties to someone to grow some veg in your garden.

And will we do anything about it? Only time will tell.

Lab_Mouse

shedweller wrote: »

And will we do anything about it?

Don't eat veg!!!simples:pac:

Jonny7

Monsanto itself has said they strongly regret not working with the documentary crew, bit late now.

shanered

Bad Monsanto!

FreudianSlippers

humanji wrote: »

I'd disagree with that. Monsanto are as close to a comic book villain as you get in the real world. They have absolutely no redeeming qualities. What they seem to have been trying here, and which they have done in many other countries, is modifying a crop so they can market it. But as happens with most crops, cross contamenation occurs with non-GM crops. Monsanto then sue the farmers of the contaminated non-GM crops for using their product. The Farmers can't pay. Monsanto takes their farm. Rinse and repeat.

It's kind of a terrifying prospect that there may be a time when you have to pay royalties to someone to grow some veg in your garden.

That's what I mean. I don't believe it's a conspiracy theory, I believe it's a fact.

Hal Emmerich

Monsanto's Man in the Obama Administration

Long link.