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Embarrassed by the deluge of more than 1850 letters from concerned farmers, scientists, and other individuals from 54 countries, the USDA's "Fact Sheet" is a muted re-hash with no new arguments or data.
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After 17 years - a 17 day wonder? Now the question is, what next?
In search of vindication and vision, the CGIAR's first Systemwide Review in 17 years is indeed a vociferous defence of the past but its recommendations for the future vacuous and doomed to be discounted. After 18 months and $1.5 million is the System back where it started? How will it recover from its post-harvest losses?
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Seed industry rankings have a shorter shelf life than tomatoes. As RAFI predicted, the frenetic pace of seed industry mergers has made our list of major seed companies and their subsidiaries out of date in a matter of weeks (see the July/August RAFI Communique, Seed Industry Consolidation).
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Monsanto appears apoplectic in the face of global criticism over the seed-killing Terminator technology. In recent weeks the company has taken a drubbing across the globe, from India to New Zealand, Zimbabwe, the UK, and even in cyberspace. But so far Monsanto's legendary spinmasters have been unable to counter the criticism and articulate any good reason why the world needs the Terminator. Who, after all, wants a dead seed?
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Monsanto aparece apopléjico frente a la crítica global sobre la tecnología Terminador que mata semillas. En semanas recientes (1998), la compañía ha sufrido derrotas en todo el mundo, desde la India a Nueva Zelandia, Zimbabwe, el Reino Unido, e incluso en el ciberespacio. Sin embargo, los legendarios funcionarios de relaciones públicas de Monsanto no han podido hasta el momento contradecir la crítica ni articular razón buena alguna por la cual el mundo necesita el Terminador. ¿Quién, después de todo, desea una semilla muerta?
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Plant patent" offices in several industrialized countries are knowingly granting plant variety monopolies to plant breeders for cultivars actually bred by farmers in at least 43 Third World countries. RAFI and Heritage Seed Curators Australia (HSCA) today are presenting a roster of 147 "dubious" plant variety claims to challenge the World Trade Organization's edict that countries must grant intellectual property "protection" over living plant varieties. The WTO is meeting in Geneva September 17-18 to discuss procedures for reviewing the controversial clause in 1999. Now, the question shouldn't be "What the WTO is going to do about plant breeders rights?" rather, it is "What are the WTO and the various intergovernmental 'patent' conventions going to do about plant breeders wrongs?"
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CSO's and the Third System.
A 39 page document.
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RAFI's in-depth report on plant piracy, prepared in partnership with Heritage Seed Curators Australia, concludes that intellectual property regimes for plant varieties are inherently predatory upon the knowledge of indigenous peoples and farming communities.
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Europe's answer to the American Home Monster" Terminator Technology is the Verminator, a new chemically activated seed killer. The Verminator kills seeds - in one of the invention's claims - by switching on rodent fat genes that have been bioengineered into crops. Zeneca BioSciences (UK) is vying with the "Monster" (Monsanto) to become Top Cat in the global seed industry even if it means playing cat and mouse with farmers and destroying their age-old practice of saving and breeding crop varieties.
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Grameen Rejects Mean The American Home "Monster" is held at bay in Bangladesh - but who is going to monitor the micro-creditors? Since when is "empowerment through indebtedness" a solution for poor farming communities?
On 27 July 1998 Muhammad Yunus, managing director of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh was reported by the BBC to have cancelled the Bank's planned relationship with Monsanto Corporation (often referred to as the American Home Monster" following its announced merger with American Home Products earlier this year). The abandoned arrangement would have given the micro-credit bank U.S.$250,000 to provide loans to poor farmers to buy Monsanto's agro-chemical and biotechnology products. Grameen's capitulation follows a month of intense international pressure that began June 25th when Yunus announced the Monsanto grant together with the Corporation's CSO, Robert Shapiro.
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Civil Society Organizations and the "Third System"
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The first half of 1998 witnessed a dramatic consolidation of power over plant genetics worldwide. The global seed trade is dominated by life industry giants whose vast economic power over plant germplasm has effectively marginalized the role of public sector plant breeding and research.
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The Grameen Bank's June 25th announcement that it will accept US$150,000 from Monsanto Corporation (St. Louis, MO. USA) to launch the Grameen Monsanto Center for Environment-Friendly Technologies is stirring up a storm of controversy throughout agricultural and rural organizations around the Third World. The surprise move was unveiled jointly by Muhammad Yunus, Managing Director of the Grameen Bank and Robert Shapiro, MonsantoÌs Chair and CEO. The company's initial grant is for soft loans to Bangladeshi farmers.
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Negotiations for a new International Undertaking took place on two fronts. The Commission Chair took a small regionally-representative group aside to discuss access and benefit-sharing in the Lebanon room while the Vice-Chair took on Farmers' Rights with the remainder of the delegation in the Green room. Both negotiating processes broke down when the North found itself without running room and the South presented "bottom line" positions in both arenas. Here's an overview of the dividing issues, what happened, and where diplomats can go from here.
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The only thing that can keep pace with the rate of agricultural biotechnological change these days is the speed with which the transnatinoal Life Industry is eating itself. in the last couple of years, Monsanto has spent more than $6.7 billion buying seed and other ag biotech companies. Now, American Home Products is merging with Monsanto for another $33 billion. Other massive mergers are inevitable within the next few months. That transnational agri-business wants to stop farmers from saving seeds and conducting their own plant breeding is hardly news.
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The Iceland government has been forced to postpone a bill to give genomics company, deCODE an exclusive license to collect current and retrospective medical information about all Icelanders into a central database and the sole right to commercial exploitation. A number of major concerns were cited in the announcement to postpone the initiative.
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The $33 billion merger between AHP and Monsanto will force the life industry into a race to see who will come out on top. The merger creates a new challenge for anti-trust and anti-monopoly law enforcement in the areas of pharmaceuticals, crop chemicals, plant breeding, human genomics, and livestock.
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