Independent scientists against patents on life forms

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New Delhi Oct 5: Global civil society organisations and independent scientists have voiced their concerns over patenting knowledge designed for combating the impact of climate change in agriculture. They have said that such patent rights would make the seeds costlier and would not enable resource poor farmers to fight the onslaught of climate change.

“There are ample local seeds of different crops resistant drought, salinity and water logging. If these traits are used to develop new seeds and patent rights are extended over them, then it would amount to a situation where science has no social responsibility for combating climate change,” said the Right Livelihood Award winner and founder of the ETC group Canada, Pat Roy Mooney.

Addressing the international conference on food security and climate organised by Navdanya in Delhi, Mooney disclosed that about 532 applications have been filed in patent offices across the world for patent rights over the knowledge designed to combat the impact of climate change in agriculture. Such patent rights have been claimed by six leading multinational companies including BASF, Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer. Swaminathan Research Foundation has also claimed process patent rights over three varieties of rice and one on mango, he said.

Utsa Pattnaik of Jawaharlal Nehru University blamed the imposed global model of agriculture responsible for endangering food security. She said that a large part of the land was being diverted from staples to production of feed for livestock. More emphasis was being given to production of non-food crops for exports and a considerable portion of the land being diverted to cultivation of bio-fuel crops.

The director of the UK-based Institute of Science in Society, Mae Won Ho said that patenting of genes should not be allowed. It is possible that one DNA has many functions and several DNAs have the same function. “This is a nature’s gift and should not be patented,” she said and added that transgenic technology has caused enormous health and environmental hazards.

The leading scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Irina Ermakova held the global distribution of GMOs responsible for climate change as it has caused disappearance of bacteria, virus and several micro-organisms.