Climate resistant crops should not be patented: Navdanya report
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- JanforGore
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In tune with the proposals made by the Group of 77, China and other developing countries at the recently concluded 30th meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 30) at the climate change talks in Bonn, Navdanya has appealed that climate-friendly technologies should be excluded from patenting.
The world’s big seed companies face claims of bio-piracy and a tough fight with activists as they race to secure patents for climate-proof GM crops.
The report – Biopiracy of Climate Resilient Crops – has documented drought resistant rice varieties grown by farmers from generations to generations in different parts of India, including Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Kerala, Karnataka and flood resistant rice varieties grown in Assam, West Bengal, Orissa, Kerala and Karnataka. Quoting the Guinness Book of Record, the report mentioned Mehite Kenye La rice as the tallest grown paddy in the world which grows up to 2.55 metre or 8.5 feet.
The report documented salinity resistant rice varieties grown in the Sunderban area of West Bengal alongwith the mangroves, Orissa, Kerala, northern Karnataka. It also mentioned some of the diverse aromatic rice varieties and rice varieties having therapeutic values and unique characteristics.
The Navdanya report expressed concern over the biopiracy being done by leading seed multinationals by getting broad patent rights over climate-resistant traits of conventional crops from different patent offices across the world. German company, BASF has acquired 21 such patent rights. Another German company, Bayers has five such patent rights. Ceres Inc of US which partners with Monsanto holds four such patent rights. The reports also mentioned other seed companies holding such patent rights like Dow, DuPont, Evogene, Mendel Biotechnology, Monsanto, Syngenta, Agrigenetic, Mycogen, Agrinomics, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Plant Research International BV.
“Climate resistant traits are found in many crops conventionally grown across the world, particularly in tropical and sub-tropical countries. These crops are traditionally bred by farmers. The seed multinationals are robbing the farmers of this traditional knowledge and patenting the traits. Some of them are trying to develop second generation genetically modified (GM) crops based on these traits,” alleged Vandana Shiva of Navdanya.
According to Shiva GM crops have failed to provide food and nutritional security. The claim of pest control has turned out to be a hoax. The failure of Bt cotton was an example she said and added that Bt cotton cultivation has placed farmers in heavy losses and brought them to acute point of distress.
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JanforGore
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This is a huge threat to biodiversity and the rights of farmers whose indigenous knowledge of these traits that already exist would be superceded for the patent rights of a company that did not invent these traits. Once a genetic sequence becomes the intellectual property of a company it can then prevent others from using any plant that has a substantially similar sequence. Farmers could therefore have to buy climate tolerant seeds from these companies for every crop cycle and would not be allowed to store or exchange seeds for replanting.
They are in essence stealing not only the genome but the knowledge of farmers and aiming to force them into servitude for buying seeds. Where will it end? Also once again we see the possibility of their crops failing as these monocrops would replace traditional crops worldwide with global famine as a concern. Any climate talks in Copenhagen must be strict in not allowing these monocrops to be planted globally especially in areas where the poorest live. There is no need to patent genes found naturally in a crop. It is simply meant to profit from others' misery and to take the livelihoods of farmers from them.
- 2 years ago
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JanforGore
