La especie conocida como arroz es ahora propiedad privada
cor
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Rice is now Oryza syngenta!
Date: 27 Feb 2004 08:17:26 -0600
From: marcus
Rice is now Oryza syngenta!
By Devinder Sharma
The launch of a high-yielding dwarf rice variety by the International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on Nov 28, 1966 marked the beginning of
Asia's struggle for freedom from hunger. Perhaps drawn by the promise
of the 'miracle rice' the IR8 rice variety -- the Food and
Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) dedicated 1966 as
the International Rice Year.
Thirty-eight years later, as the United Nations dedicates 2004 to the
world's most important staple food once again, celebrating it as the
International Year of Rice, the starchy grain has undergone a complete
metamorphosis. In 1966, the miracle rice seeds that ushered in the
green revolution belonged to the species Oryza sativa -- a mankind's
heritage. Since the time the indica variety of wild rice was known to
be growing in the northern and southern slopes of the Himalayas and
that was some 15,000 years ago rice has been regarded as probably
God's greatest gift to human society.
Staple food for more than half the worlds population, rice is part of
the Asian culture, rice is the unstated religion of Asia, and in
essence rice is the life of Asia. It is in Asia still that more than
97 per cent of the world's rice is grown. Nearly 91 per cent of
worlds rice is produced in Asia, and 92 per cent is eaten in Asia.
Rice is the principal food of three of the world's four most populous
nations: People's Republic of China, India and Indonesia. For more
than 2.5 billion people in these three countries alone rice is what
they grow up with. For centuries, rice has been the sociology,
tradition and lifeline for the majority world.
That was an era associated with Oryza sativa, the biological name for
rice, we know. That was the period when rice was freely available for
farmers, consumers and the scientists. Whether it were the 200,000
plant accessions of rice that were known to be cultivated some 200
years ago, or the handful of dwarf and high-yielding rice varieties
and its numerous national variants the world over that have led the
march against hunger in the recent past, rice was a realm of nature.
As the world begins to commemorate the International Year of Rice
2004, a leading multinational agribusiness giant, Syngenta, has
already claimed ownership of rice. In other words, biological
inheritance of the world's major food crop is now in the hands of a
Swiss multinational. The journey of rice, beginning with the emergence
of wild rice some 130 million years ago, transcending through the
Himalayas, passing through southern China, hopping to Japan, traveling
to Africa, traded to Middle East and the Mediterranean, shipped to
Mexico and America, has finally ended at the banks of river Rhine in
Basel, Switzerland -- under the monopoly control of Syngenta.
As that brouhaha was unfolding several years ago, agribusiness giants
kept on assuring the scientific community that crops like rice, wheat
and other cereals are of no commercial interest to them. Their focus
was on cash crops like strawberries, cut flowers, tomatoes and the
likes, which could rake in big profits. This prompted universities,
which developed such technologies in the first place, to license these
to the private corporations. Knowing well that patenting alone will
determine who wields power over farming and world food system, a tug
of war began over who controls the rice plant genome the raw
sequences in the genetic code.
The tussle over the monopoly control of rice extends to its 12
chromosomes. These chromosomes contain 430 million base pairs of DNA,
and are expected to have about 50,000 genes. Syngenta, in
collaboration with Myriad Genetics Inc of USA, has beaten Monsanto in
the game by sequencing more than 99.5 per cent of the rice genome.
Syngenta has already made it clear that it will restrict access to the
genomic map and expects proprietary control over any research carried
out with the information.
Top executives of Syngenta have already told the New York Times that
while the companies would not seek to patent the entire genome, they
would try to patent individual valuable genes. They categorically
stated that Syngenta and Myriad were well on their way to finding many
of those. First Monsanto, which made international headlines in April
2000, for announcing to share its working draft (rougher, 60 per cent)
of the genome map with international researchers sequencing the rice
genome under a publicly funded International Rice Genome Sequencing
Project (IRGSP), and then Syngenta making it clear of the efforts to
seek patents on genes with visible commercial output, the race is on
to draw proprietary control over something that existed in nature.
There are conflicting reports of the latest tally of patents over rice
genes. Some researchers say that more than 900 genes have already been
patented. Earlier, GRAIN had compiled a list of 609 patents on rice
genes drawn till Sept 2000, 56 per cent of which were owned by private
companies and research institutes in the western countries. Top of the
list was the American giant Du Pont with 95 patents, followed by
Mitsui, Japan, with 45 patents. In the next three years, especially
after the mapping of the rice genome by Syngenta, a majority of the
patents would surely be in the lap of a handful of multinational
agribusiness companies.
The daylight robbery of genetic wealth appropriately termed as
biopiracy continues unabated in connivance with top scientists,
international organizations and the policy makers. The Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which governs
the 16 international agricultural research centers for public good,
has actually welcomed the recent developments in rice. The Rockefeller
Foundation, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the World
Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and even the FAO and UNDP
have refrained from standing up against what appears to be the
nefarious design of the private companies in the name of research and
development. In fact, the CGIAR has even gone a step ahead by taking
Syngenta on its board thereby ensuring that the company gets a free
access to the world's biggest rice germplasm collections that it has.
Syngenta subsequently gained exclusive rights on the controversial
Golden Rice technology in exchange for help with the IPR issues and
the different testing of the rice for a humanitarian project. This
happened when the international community was negotiating an agreement
to see that the 70-odd patents that were coming in the way of free
transfer and application of the technology were removed. Ingo
Potrykus, university professor of the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology, who developed the Golden Rice, was in a desperate haste to
see that his name is enshrined in history as the saviour of the
malnourished. Greenovation, a spin-off company from the University of
Freiburg in Germany, was therefore founded in 1999 to out-license
university research to life science companies.
The patent was applied a year later, naming Igno Potrykus and his
colleague Beyer as the inventors, and facilitating an agreement with
Zeneca, now Syngenta. For the Swiss company, the IPR over Golden Rice
provides a human face to its manipulative gene control designs. The
company has already announced that the technology will be free for
farmers in the developing countries with annual incomes of less than
US $ 10,000, a wonderful exercise in public relations knowing well
that the Golden Rice has little utility and relevance for the
developing countries.
The quest for control over rice does not end with patenting of its
genes. In 2002, stung by criticism, Syngenta India had to pull out
from the controversial research collaboration with the Indira Gandhi
Agricultural University (IGAU) at Raipur. The collaboration would have
given the company commercial rights to over 19,000 strains of local
rice cultivars held by the university. These rice varieties were
painstakingly gathered by the agricultural scientist R H Richharia in
the 1970s. In exchange, the university would have received an
undisclosed amount of money and royalties.
Environmentalists and some scientists had opposed the deal on the
ground that Richharia's collection is a national wealth and not a
private property of the university and that opening the database to a
multinational company is a "sellout". "We are very disappointed to see
the misleading and false accusations that were made (against the
collaboration)," a company official was quoted as saying. What is
however relatively unknown is the fact that the Richharia rice
collections were not the only plant species that the company had an
eye for. It has reportedly gone into numerous agricultural
universities in India, singing agreements that enable the company
commercial rights over the hybrid rice varieties in lieu of five per
cent royalties from sales.
Patrick Mulvany of the Intermediate Technology Development Group
(ITDG) is a distinguished researcher who has closely followed the
biodiversity trail. "Not just national collections, but also CGIAR
genebanks (which contain over 600,000 plant accessions) will come
under increasing pressure from multinationals in the next year or two,
to exchange the genetic resources in genebanks under public control
for traitorous pieces of silver," he warns. Accordingly, as "Plant
genetic resources for food and agriculture" are defined in the
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources Article 2 as "any
genetic material of plant origin of actual or potential value for food
and agriculture", it should be quite clear that IPRs are NOT allowed
on these genetic resources.
However, the eminent Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, set
up by the UK government, has already jumped the gun and has
interpreted Article 12.3(d) as meaning that patents can be taken out
on genes derived from the seeds kept under the rules of the
multilateral systems (those 35 genera of food crops, including rice,
wheat, maize and potatoes, and 29 forages covered by the MLS in its
Annex 1). Mulvany explains: "The crucial words 'in the form received'
mean that material received cannot be patented as such, but they do
allow patents to be taken out on modifications (however defined) to
that material." (CIPR report Ch 3).
In simple words, even the CIPR has failed to foresee the underlying
threat to food sovereignty. Not realizing that such an interpretation
will lead to scientific apartheid against the developing countries.
After all, with the product and process patents coming into vogue in
agriculture, the dice is loaded against public sector agricultural
research. As a result of private control over genes and biological
processes, farm research in the public sector will be rendered
redundant. It has already happened in the rich industrialized
countries where universities have increasing gone private or are
surviving on private funds. To begin with, rice research will be the
biggest casualty for the developing countries. With a few private
companies vying for the crumbs, rice is essentially in the grip of
Syngenta.
The International Year of Rice 2004 is in reality a celebration of the
private control of one of the mankind's most precious heritage rice
plant. It is a toast to acknowledge the emergence of Switzerland on
the world's rice map.
Oryza sativa, therefore for all practical purposes will become Oryza
syngenta.