USDA betrays public trust with terminator patents

Canada, Apr. 22-- The Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), an international civil society organization based in Canada, announced today that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) holds two new patents on the controversial Terminator technology, the genetic engineering of plants to render their seeds sterile. If commercialized, Terminator would make it impossible for farmers to save seeds from their harvest, forcing them to return to the commercial seed market every year.

"The US government is advancing research and squandering taxpayer dollars on a technology that has been universally condemned because it is bad for farmers, food security, and biodiversity," says Pat Mooney, Executive Director of RAFI. "It's an egregious misallocation of public resources for the sole purpose of maximizing seed industry profits," adds Mooney.

"It's disgraceful," says Hope Shand, RAFI's Research Director. "We were shocked to discover USDA's new patents because when we met with US Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Richard Rominger on two separate occasions last year, his staff assured us in no uncertain terms that there were no more patents in the works. Why didn't we get the straight story?" asks Shand.

"Despite mounting opposition from national governments, United Nations' agencies, farmers, scientists, and civil society organizations around the world, USDA continues to ignore the public outcry at home and abroad," adds Silvia Ribeiro, RAFI Program Officer. Last month for example, the Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization declared FAO's opposition to Terminator. Earlier this month, the state of Maryland (US) introduced a bill to ban Terminator seeds.

According to RAFI, the new patents on genetic seed sterilization were issued in 1999 (US Patent No. 5,925,808 issued on July 20, 1999 and US Patent No. 5,977,441 issued on November 2, 1999). The patents are jointly owned by USDA and Delta & Pine Land (the world's largest cotton seed company), the owners of the original 1998 patent. The USDA's new patents share the same titles, inventors, and abstracts as the earlier patent, but they describe new innovations and demonstrate that USDA scientists are continuing to refine the technology and advance the research.

On October 28, 1999 representatives from a broad base of civil society organizations (CSOs) met with US Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman to demand that his agency abandon research and development of genetic seed sterilization. Participants included the American Corn Growers Association, Consumers Union, National Family Farm Coalition, Ralph Nader of Public Citizen, International Center for Technology Assessment, Mothers and Others for a Livable Planet, Consumer Federation, Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, RAFI, and RAFI-USA. Less than five days later, USDA won a new patent on Terminator.

"We feel duped and betrayed," says Gary Goldberg, CEO of the American Corn Growers Association. "We demand to know why the USDA continues to invest taxpayer dollars on anti-farmer research that, if commercialized, will hold farmers hostage to giant agribusiness corporations," said Goldberg.

USDA's growing portfolio of Terminator patents sends an ominous message to the rest of the world, says Rafael Alegria, General Coordinator of Via Campesina, the largest confederation of peasants' and small farmers' organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America. "It amounts to a declaration of war against the 1.4 billion people who depend on farm-saved seeds --mainly poor people-- and it's an assault on global food security," explains Alegria.

Neth Dano, Executive Director of SEARICE, the Southeast Asian Regional Institute for Community Education, agrees, "This technology goes far beyond intellectual property. A patent expires after 20 years, but if Terminator seeds are commercialized it will give a handful of multinational Gene Giants a monopoly with no expiration date. This technology aims to eliminate the right of farmers to save seeds and do local plant breeding, and it will destroy the concept of national seed sovereignty."

The USDA has appointed a new Biotech Advisory Board.

"It's a litmus test for the USDA advisory board," explains RAFI's Shand. Will they or won't they demand accountability from USDA? There's no doubt that the biotech advisory board has a full plate and it's loaded with controversial GMO (genetically modified organisms) issues, but Terminator must be the number one priority," stresses Shand.
Without effective action by civil society and governments to ban Terminator seeds, RAFI concludes that suicide seeds will be commercialized, with potentially disastrous consequences for farmers, food security and the environment.

"Terminator has grabbed the spotlight, but we are equally concerned about the closely related genetic trait control technologies (Traitor Tech) which enables a plant's genetic traits to be turned on or off with the application of an external chemical --the company's proprietary chemical," adds Ribeiro. "Although the USDA and Delta & Pine Land are the high-profile crusaders, the goal of genetic trait control is industry-wide," concludes Ribeiro.

Source: Rural Advancement Foundation International:
<www.rafi.org>