Nobel prize for opponent of GM and patents on life

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Nobel prize for opponent of GM and patents on life

" GM WATCH " <info

Fri, 8 Oct 2004 22:57:03 +0100

 

 

 

 

Nobel prize for opponent of GM and patents on life

 

http://www.gmwatch.org

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This year's Nobel Peace Prize is to be awarded to Wangari Mathai,

leader of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. A biologist by training,

Mathai is the first African woman to win the Prize.

 

She has won international recognition for her campaign for democracy,

human rights and environmental conservation. She was also among the

earliest African scientiststo draw attention to the dangers of genetic

engineering and of patents on life.

 

Below is an essay by Mathai on the subject. Here's an excerpt:

 

" History has many records of crimes against humanity, which were also

justified by dominant commercial interests and governments of the day.

Despite protests from citizens, social justice for the common good was

eroded in favour of private profits. Today, patenting of life forms and

the genetic engineering which it stimulates, is being justified on the

grounds that it will benefit society, especially the poor, by providing

better and more food and medicine. But in fact, by monopolising the

'raw' biological materials, the development of other options is

deliberately blocked. Farmers therefore, become totally dependent on the

corporations for seeds. "

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THE LINKAGE BETWEEN PATENTING OF LIFE FORMS,

GENETIC ENGINEERING AND FOOD INSECURITY

by Wangari Mathai, Coordinator,

The Green Belt Movement, Nairobi, Kenya.

http://www.genet-info.org/-documents/AfricaGMOsPatents.pdf

 

The increasingly contentious debate about the impact of patenting of

life forms and genetic engineering is extremely important to all

humanity. This is especially true for developing countries, rich in

biological

resources and the traditional practices which have generated this

diversity for centuries. It is this resource, called " green gold " ,

which is

now being explored and exploited by global transnational corporations.

 

Traders have appropriated other people's resources, including human

'resources' and territories, as free goods for centuries, usually by

buying-off misinformed, unsuspecting or corrupted nationals.

Biotechnology

and patenting of life forms is now the new frontier for conquest, and

Africa ought to be wary because a history of colonialism and exploitation

is repeating itself.

 

Implications of Patenting Life Forms

 

The original purpose of patenting and the laws governing the regime

were developed to apply to machinery and industrial inventions. Justice

now demands that new laws be agreed, through a democratic and open

process, to address the new

developments in biotechnology. This is especially important when

transnational corporations seek to use this technology to justify

their claim

for monopoly rights on living materials.

 

Corporations are trying to appropriate life through the same rules

which have governed the world of business and profits in the past.

Industry

has in fact already managed to gain private monopoly rights (patents)

on some living materials, by distorting the original concept and

intention of patenting - as life is obviously not an invention.

 

This distortion has been deliberately created by blurring the meaning

of invention so that corporations can obtain private monopolies on mere

'discoveries' of biological materials and their properties, such as

umbilical chord blood cells and basmati rice.

 

This issue is critical because patenting is being applied to seeds

which are the basis of societies' food systems. Corporations claim that

they can mix and match genetic material through the new genetic

engineering technology, to make better seeds.

 

However, to recuperate their investments, they also claim that they

need to obtain a private monopoly right (patent) on the genetic material

which they use. In fact this is to stop others from developing products

with the same charactereristics, and it effectively blocks the

development of other options from the patented material.

 

Patenting of living material is also being called 'biopiracy' because

corporations get genetic material from the farmers and local

communities, who are constantly developing new combinations and

characteristics.

This old tradition has

increased biodiversity, productivity and innovation over the centuries,

without using genetic engineering technology or claiming private

ownership of such resources, which are considered a common heritage.

 

The idea that African farmers should have to buy seeds, developed from

their own biological materials, from transnational corporations,

because such companies have given themselves the exclusive rights to

those

seeds, is outrageous. The rights and the capacity of communities to feed

themselves would be completely undermined, if industry managed to

assert its self-given rights. In the US, farmers are punished for

re-using

patented seeds. Industry is trying to force farmers to buy seed each

season, which makes them totally dependent on the corporations (1).

 

Until recently the corporations' ability to enforce their self-given

rights in Africa and other developing countries was limited by many

factors including distance, the large number of farmers, and lack of

legislation in favour of corporate monopoly. It is

precisely in order to control the traditional freedom of farmers to

develop, use and exchange seeds, that the agrochemical industry has now

developed what has been dubbed the 'terminator technology'. This

genetically engineered technology ensures that seed injected with the

'suicide

gene' does not germinate after harvesting. This means the farmers will

have to buy seed each season, and cannot develop their own seed.

 

This the corporations themselves admit, through US scientist Melvin

Oliver, the primary 'inventor' of the new patent-protecting 'terminator'

technique: 'the need was there to come up with a system that allowed you

to self-police your technology, other than trying to put laws and legal

barriers to farmers saving seeds, and to try and stop foreign interests

from stealing the technology'(2).

 

Under these circumstances, if we thought that slavery and colonialism

were gross violations of human rights, we have to wake up to what is

awaiting us down the secretive road of biopiracy, patenting of life and

genetic engineering. Genocide from hunger, such as we have not yet seen,

becomes a haunting possibility.

 

Creating Food Insecurity

 

This lethal use of genetic engineering biotechnology threatens the food

security of this and future generations. It destroys the very basis of

the livelihood systems which our ancestors have developed for

centuries, finely adapting to the diverse ecosystems in which they

have evolved.

The development and control of farmers' own biodiversity is an

inalienable right and the basis upon which food security is achieved.

What the

transnational corporations and their government allies are advocating

undermines, the life style, values and ethics of farming communities. It

is indeed a violation of their right to food and to natural justice.

 

History has many records of crimes against humanity, which were also

justified by dominant commercial interests and governments of the day.

Despite protests from citizens, social justice for the common good was

eroded in favour of private profits. Today, patenting of life forms and

the genetic engineering which it stimulates, is being justified on the

grounds that it will benefit society, especially the poor, by providing

better and more food and medicine. But in fact, by monopolising

the 'raw' biological materials, the development of other options is

deliberately blocked. Farmers therefore, become totally dependent on the

corporations for seeds. Market monopolies create pricing structures

which make biotech products

inaccessible to the poor, in whose name they are promoted. In fact the

poor cannot access these markets. Instead they are persuaded, coerced

and sometimes forced, to grow cash crops like coffee, tea, cocoa, french

beans and flowers rather than

growing food for household consumption. They have to do this to

generate the cash, to buy the seeds and associated chemical inputs

such as

fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides from the corporations. In addition

they have no control of the pricing of the cash crops nor of the food

they have to buy as a result.

 

They are at the mercy of the fluctuations of the commodity markets, and

so are their governments which get into debt to buy the food they need

to feed their people. This distorted process has been engineered by the

'free' trade ideologies, so that corporations can generate their

ever-growing profits, which cannot be made if people feed themselves and

control their local economies. The process also ensures that

international

debts, incurred by national governments so that they can buy

commodities from international markets, are serviced by local

communities which

are thereby kept in perpetual debt bondage and poverty.

 

Why Genetic Engineering will Not Feed the World

 

At present the transnational biotechnology industry is aggressively

persuading the resisting European consumers that genetic engineering will

feed the growing populations in developing countries. It is now widely

accepted that food security for local communities means the capacity to

access, develop and exchange seeds and to produce enough food for the

households, only selling the surplus to the market. Likewise, national

food security means the capacity for a country to

produce enough seed and food for its citizens and only the surplus

should be sold to the commodity markets abroad.

 

However, for the corporations, food security means growing numbers,

able to buy seed and food from the commodity markets they control, which

is what makes it inaccessible to the poor.

 

Indeed, only northern consumers can afford goods from these markets,

which is why the biotech industry has to persuade the resisting Europeans

- through coercion if necessary - that genetically engineered food will

feed the world. Thus

transnational corporations would begin to harvest unjust profits at the

expense of local food security.

 

The resistance must continue to grow, North and South, in solidarity,

in order to avoid the old tactic of divide and rule.

 

Notes:

1. 'Monsanto Rounds Up Farmers' Seedling (March 1998, Vol.15 No.1),

GRAIN

2. 'The Terminator Technology: new genetic technology aims to prevent

farmers from saving seed', RAFI Communique (March-April 1998), RAFI

 

 

 

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