Ministers are receiving a status report on key terminator patents in their countries. "Many governments are unaware that the World Trade Organization (WTO) allows countries to reject individual patents on the grounds that they are contrary to ordre public (public morality and/or a threat to health or the environment)." Pat Mooney, RAFI's executive director says: "The WTO also allows governments to ban the entire technology. Both steps should betaken."

Mail call for ministers

While letters are going directly to key policy-makers, RAFI is also posting the country-specific status reports on its website (http://www.rafi.org/ reports/).

"We're encouraging citizens to write directly to their president or prime minister. "More than 7,700 letters from 72 countries have been sent to the US secretary of agriculture protesting the terminator. People need to encourage their own governments to act as well." RAFI's website has an on-line question-and-answer brochure on terminator.

Citizens can review sample letters sent to ministers in English, French, and Spanish and use the letter as the basis for writing directly to their own head of government.

Terminator troubles

Opposition to the terminator is nearing a critical mass. Maurice Strong, secretary-general of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, has stated that, "If the owners of technology, such as big companies, used it to victimize people through methods such as promotion of `terminatorgenes', the state should intervene and not leave the task to the market mechanism."

Strong's sentiments seem to parallel those of MS Swaminathan, recipient of the prestigious World Food Prize, and past chair of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Last October, Swaminathan told the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) that the technology threatened agricultural biodiversity and the food security of the poor. Subsequently, the CGIAR - the world's largest agricultural research network for developing countries, adopted a policy not to use the terminator in their varieties.

The Government of India has already announced that it will ban the technology and similar steps are being taken by the Brazilian state of Rio Grande de Sul and the state of New Hampshire in the USA.

A scientific panel established by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity has just tabled its report on the terminator.

The report, which will be discussed in Montreal from June 21 to 25 is predictablymealy-mouthed but the panel's chair, Dr Richard Jefferson, was harshly critical of the technology's use in seed sterilisation when he met with governments in Rome in April.

Corporate colds?

Terminator's patent-holders are now signaling that they might abandon the technology or agree to a moratorium and public dialogue before they decide to commercialise it.

AstraZeneca (the Swedish-British merger of Astra pharmaceuticals and Zeneca biosciences) is hinting that it will not use the technology to stop farmers from replanting seed.

The Dutch biotech institute at Wageningen University--also the holder of a terminator patent--has announced that it has no intention of releasing terminator seeds to farmers.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which shares the original terminator patent with Monsanto, has stated that it will not use the sterility technique in its own varietal releases.

In April, Monsanto said that it wants an independent international evaluation of the technology'simplications. A senior Monsanto official told Pat Mooney of RAFI that he would be happy if a UN body undertook an all-stakeholders' process that, he surmised, might take two years to complete.

False fronts?

Yet, even as AstraZeneca was suggesting that it wouldn't prevent farmers from saving seed, I have discovered terminator-type patent number 30, held by an AstraZeneca joint venture enterprise with ExSeed Genetics, a US company whose research is based at Iowa State University.

There is also a cloud of uncertainty surrounding Monsanto's peace offering... "Monsanto seems to be calling for a de facto moratorium and for a global dialogue," says Pat Mooney, "This is commendable."

However the company says it is working with InterAction (a US umbrella group for overseas aid organizations) to develop the process. First, the rest of the world has never heard of InterAction. Second, the issue is wider than Monsanto, it involves at least 13 patent-holders in a half-dozen countries.

Third, InterActiondenies that they have been contacted by Monsanto and agrees that they don't have the competence to address the issue. Who's playing what game here?

International review

"We don't need another study of an obviously flawed and immoral technology," Hope Shand, RAFI's research director insists, "we need a review of current private and public agricultural research strategies around the world. We need to understand how priorities are being set. How did so many intelligent scientists come up with such a vicious anti-farmer technology?"

Pat Mooney agrees, adding "The review should be under the auspices of an intergovernmental fora or a well-defined international body like the Global Forum on Agricultural Research sponsored by the World Bank and FAO." Lastly, I feel the governments should reject all of the terminator-type patents and declare a national ban on the entire technology."

The author is programme officer in the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), a non-profit internationalcivil society organisation headquartered in Winnipeg, Canada