-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 09 April 2001 08:57
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: Liability for biotech products in developing countries

This is from Kevin Hollis. I am a plant physiology student at Indiana University, United States.

Regarding the Canadian court decision, if a seed corporation pursued a similar line in a developing country where they had sufficient political and economic sway they could increase their monopolization of a market niche very efficiently and basically legally. This leaves the farmer in an undesirable position and could increase the negative aspects of monoculture in such areas (fundamentally decreasing genetic diversity and hence natural resistance). While the company can accept this risk as a profitable business venture, the farmer could be severely hurt by any significant pest invasion or microbe attack (or even climate change) and would be dependent upon the seed company's benevolent nature as regards cost and supply of additional resources necessary for profitable growth of the hypothetical crop.

Education could inform the farmers in these situations and avoid damaging regulation. Programs similar to the U.S. 4-H program to interest and educate young members of developing countries about their options and the consequences of documented cases could empower them to protect themselves in such situations. [4-H is the youth education branch of the Cooperative Extension Service, a program of the United States Department of Agriculture. It is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States with more than 6.8 million participants...Moderator]

Kevin Hollis, khollis@indiana.edu

[To contribute to this conference, send your message to biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org For further information on the FAO Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp ]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 09 April 2001 10:09
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Re: Liability for biotech products in developing countries

My name is Claire Cummings, from the United States. I am a lawyer and food and farming reporter with over 35 years experience in agriculture, including being a former USDA attorney. I have farmed in California and Vietnam. I published The Rice Paper while living in Vietnam and am familiar with conventional agriculture, sustainable agriculture and IPR issues. I want to make a few comments about the implications of the recent Monsanto case in Canada.

I agree it is not just about this particular farmer - Percy Schmeiser; he was caught in a larger web. Monsanto has sued hundreds of farmers - the point being intimidation and, ultimately, the level of control the company seeks to have over the food chain. Farmers are in dire straits, very few of them are eager to use GMOs but, given the chance to participate in production-based subsidized agriculture, if that what it takes to stay in business, they will take it. We cannot measure how the use of patents and genetic engineering in agriculture would work if farmers had real choices because we are not operating in the "best of all possible worlds" in farming. Industrial farmers are having the worst years of a long-term, and continuing, crisis in agriculture, one that is made even worse by these patented technologies, inputs and patent enforcement practices. Since GMOs were introduced in 1996, farmgate prices are rock bottom, subsidies are at record highs, consumer confidence is lower than ever, health and environmental costs are up - altogether, this is not a pretty picture.

Monsanto's concern is certainly not the money they won from a small farmer and not even the bad publicity. Like the contamination of the seed supply with GMOs - admitted to by other companies - their ultimate objective is, as a Canadian paper recently reported as stated by a company spokesperson, to make the presence of GMOs inevitable. The larger agenda beyond that is control of the food supply (in order to profit at each point of exchange from field to fork) through the privatization of the germplasm. It was not that long ago that the operating premise of agriculture was that farmers had a right to save seed. The real meaning of this court decision, in my opinion, is that this is no longer a safe option, given the permitted levels of contamination of patented varieties.

Like the judge in this case, to see these seeds as "belonging" to Monsanto you have to make certain assumptions. The primary assumption is that germplasm can be owned by a corporation, manipulated genetically, and restricted in its use by the owner, even after it is released into the environment on a massive scale.

Patents are being broadly applied for commercial purposes, even though there is no legal or scientific justification for such policies, and it is a misuse of the IPR system. IPR, in itself, is a very useful instrument. Protections for the innovations of farmers and development of major crops by indigenous peoples are essential. But to operate on the assumption that life forms are patentable and that expensive technologies are inevitable becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Call me naive but what do we lose if we concede this, and adopt the assumptions of industrial agriculture in favor of a more sustainable vision ?

There is the assumption that agricultural innovation needs private (corporate) financing and that patents are necessary to ensure such investment. That is neither a proven nor even a logical premise. However, there are reasons why governmental, academic and other interests cling to this notion, and that is that there are few other sources of funding and they do not want to return to public financing for expensive technologies, in part because it involves public accountability. At the University of California at Berkeley, the Plant and Microbial Biology Department made a deal with Novartis for $25 million that gave Novartis first rights to ALL research results at the department and put Novartis on academic committees. The Dean said they had to have the money. But they did not consider making the more difficult effort to educate the public about the need for science in the public interest and restore public financing. People just do not see that as an option, but it is.

Farmers in the third world need an edge, and sometimes inputs can provide that. But adopting the western model has no more chance of success in Southeast Asia than it does in South Dakota, United States, where it is a disaster. I am not arguing against IPR or patents or technology, but for public control over their applications and for farmer control over the fruits of their land and labor. That simply is not what we have, in any country in the world. In the west it is blatant, but the infrastructure for the same system is already in place in less developed countries. Who but large public and multilateral institutions like the FAO can have the vision for another way for the world to feed itself? Ok, maybe I am naive.

Claire Cummings, United States, ccummings@igc.org

[To contribute to this conference, send your message to biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org For further information on the FAO Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp ]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 09 April 2001 11:27
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Relevant information

[While it is not the normal practice in the Biotechnology Forum conferences to re-post messages, the workshop proceedings refered to below are both relevant and timely with respect to this conference and the general conclusions (especially points 5 and 7) of the workshop may stimulate comments/discussion here in the three weeks that remain of this conference.....Moderator]

The following is from the AgBiotech list and is of particular relevance to our discussion.

Edo Lin
27, rte de Bombon
77720 Breau
France
tel & fax : +33 164397844
mobile : +33 671632666
e-mail : lin.edo@free.fr

Workshop on Intellectual Property Clearinghouse Mechanisms for Agriculture

On February 16, 2001, the University of California (UC) Berkeley's Center of Sustainable Resource Development (CSRD) and the UC Office of Technology Transfer hosted a meeting in Berkeley motivated by the perceived underdevelopment and underutilization of new agricultural technologies and the continuing concern of researchers at universities and public sector research institutions, in both the United States and developing countries, with their lack of access and their limited capacity to commercialize new technologies because of intellectual property (IP) considerations. Over 90 participants were in attendance from a variety of universities, companies, and US government agencies. A summary of the workshop proceedings for review can be downloaded at http://www.CNR.Berkeley.EDU/csrd/technology/ipcmech/ . The final schedule for the conference is also available. Additional information on the background of intellectual property clearinghouse mechanisms for agriculture is provided at http://www.CNR.Berkeley.EDU/csrd/technology/ipcmech/IPCM-background.html.
For more information, contact David Zilberman or Gregory Graff

The following are general conclusions drawn from the proceedings of the workshop:

1. Development and application of appropriate biotechnologies have potential to mitigate food security problems, improve food quality, and address environmental issues, but, as with any new technology, there are numerous drawbacks and risks, such that significantly more and better research is needed to realize the potential benefits.

2. The three main obstacles to further research, development, and application of appropriate and beneficial biotechnologies are overly restricted access to intellectual properties, consumers' lack of acceptance, and uncertain government regulation.

3. If mechanisms were implemented to reduce costs associated with transacting intellectual property rights (IPRs), the breadth and quality of applications made with currently existing technologies would increase to better serve the interests of customers and the general benefit of society.

4. Public sector and university researchers have a relative advantage in coming up with new basic technologies. Private companies are most capable in the development and introduction of products to market. Thus, the need for efficient transfer of technologies is inherent in the agricultural research community.

5. The alignment of profit incentives and R&D costs of new products (partly due to high IP transaction costs) leads to neglect of large segments of agriculture, most notably minor crops and large parts of developing world agriculture. Neither private incentives nor publicly funded mandates suffice to meet the R&D needs in these sectors.

6. IPR interactions within and between the university, the public research sector, and the commercial sector in the developed countries are plagued with transaction costs, most notably as a result of broadly or poorly defined property rights in individual patents and single products involving technologies claimed by multiple IPR holders.

7. IPR interactions involving the international agricultural research community are plagued with transaction costs resulting primarily from confusion over the proliferation of nascent IP policies in many countries, the lack of coordination of those policies, and the lack of education and experience on the part of researchers and administrators in dealing with the international dimension of patent issues.

8. IPR trading works best when it occurs between parties of similar size that are simultaneously both buyers and sellers of IPRs. Under such conditions there is less emphasis on rent-seeking behavior.

[To contribute to this conference, send your message to biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org For further information on the FAO Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp ]