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RAFI's study of 118 Plant Breeders' Rights claims exposes a predatory pattern of biopiracy supported by UPOV and by national legislation in several OECD countries, especially Australia.
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The Australian seed industry has applied for plant breeder's rights (PBR) on two chickpea varieties taken from ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) - an internationally-funded public research centre based in Hyderabad, India. If granted, the Australians will give themselves a 20 year monopoly on the Asian chickpeas, which they propose to market in South Asia and the Middle East. Neither variety, however, is new to farmers. In fact, both are ICRISAT accessions originating in farmer's fields in Iran and India. It's blatant biopiracy," explains Farhad Mazhar of Bangladeshi organization UBINIG and the South Asian Network on Food, Ecology, and Culture, "Australia is privatizing seeds that belong to our farmers, and they plan to sell them back to us with their own self-authorized plant monopoly."
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Una introducción a los monopolios de la propiedad intelectual. Este folleto de 70 páginas, producido por el CIID (en inglés en 1996 y en español en 1997), está diseñado para servir como una herramienta de defensa para la sociedad civil y los formuladores de políticas, particularmente en relación a dos compromisos legales internacionales: El Convenio sobre Diversidad Biológica y los Aspectos de la Propiedad Intelectual Relacionados con el Comercio de la Organización Mundial de Comercio.
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ETC group provides an in-depth review and analysis of plant genetic resources, livestock diversity, forest biodiversity, fish and aquatic life, soil and microbial biodiversity. The book emphasizes the need for farm-based food security and summarizes the emerging policy agenda for agricultural biodiversity. 90 pages.
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In 1997, for the first time in history, global mergers and acquisitions topped 1 trillion dollars - almost 10 times the value of all takeovers at the outset of this decade. UNCTAD revealed that 79% of all foreign direct investment to the South is now in the form of corporate acquisitions and a parallel US government report advises that 40-45% of all manufacturing sales are between subsidiary and parent multinationals. 1 The multilateral agreement on investment (MAI) currently being negotiated by industrialized countries behind closed doors, if adopted, could be the final blow to national sovereignty and signal the de facto ascendancy of transnational enterprises to the political control of the world's economy. During 1997, the life industry was also active in consolidating its power over the world's biological resources...
*The world's top 10 agrochemical corporations accounted for 82% of the global agrochemical sales in 1996. Sales reached US $30.5 billion last year, up more than 15% since 1994.
*The top 10 seed corporations control approximately 40% of the commercial seed market, valued at approximately (US) $15 billion.
*The world pharmaceutical market is an estimated $251 billion; the top 10 enterprises control approximately 36% of the global market. The top 20 drug companies control 57%.
*By the end of 1997, the top 10 veterinary medicine corporations are expected to hold 63% of the total worldwide market.
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The Life Industry 1997: The Global Enterprises that Dominate Commercial Agric., Food, and Health in 1997 - an overview
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CGRFA '97 Has More Work To Do Than It Thinks!
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In 1997, the Consultative Group on Internatinal Agricultural Research (CGIAR) made notable progress in expanding the participation of the South and of women in their governance system. There is evidence that the trend that prevailed in the first half of the 1990's is reversing and that CG members and the Boards of Trustees of the 16 International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) are moving, albeit slowly, to achieve a better regional ration in their various levels of governance. Much of the credit for this shift goes to CGIAR's Chair.
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NSF Sidesteps Own Report to Fund Controversial Project to Collect the Blood of Indigenous Peoples Around the World. International Controls Needed.
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According to an article in the October 24th edition of Science magazine, In a new gold rush, genetics researchers are scouring odd corners of the world for families whose DNA is likely to carry interesting genes. They won't be freely sharing what they find, because their backing comes from companies like Sequana Therapeutics Inc. of La Jolla, California; Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Genset S.A. of Paris."
The reason why they won't share: The companies are looking to patent and profit from the DNA of remote populations. Just over a week after the Science report, on November 3, Arris Pharmaceuticals of California announced it would pay US $166 million in stock to take over Sequana, one of the highest profile human DNA prospecting companies. The merged company resulting from the Arris takeover will be called Axys Pharmaceuticals.1
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A US National Research Council (NRC) report released October 21 has unambiguously rebuffed the controversy-plagued Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP), a project that proposed to collect DNA samples from over 700 groups of people - mostly indigenous communities - from around the world.
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The life industry and US government are using bilateral bioprospecting agreements as their tool of choice to cheaply access genetic resources and undervalue farmers' resources and knowledge. These bilaterial agreements actually encourage inequities through patents, secrecy, and imbalanced negotiations that favour companies, not the true innovators and sustainable users of diversity, farmers and indigenous people.
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Agricultural biotechnology is intensely concentrated in the hands of four or five life industry corporations. Provides a snapshot of five industry giants.
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La situation des semences
Les anciens centres de diversite des cultures disparaissent dans le tiers-monde... quelle est l'ampleur du probleme? Que fait-on? Cette situation affecte-t-elle les approvisionnements alimentaires de la planete? Qu'est-ce que cela signifie pour les nations industrialisees "pauvres en genes"?
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The world's largest and most influential international agricultural research network, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), is conducting its first full systemwide review in 17 years. In May, 1998 in Brayil, a prestigious review panel led by Maurice Strong will table its recommendations for the future of the network, which launched the Green Revolution.
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The hesitancy with which the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) began granting animal patents in 1988 has all but disappeared, and today the practice is accelerating dramatically (see chart). The recent trend is fueled by a backlog of patent applications, rapid advances in biotechnologies and the promise of commercial markets for transgenic animals and the therapeutic proteins they produce. Based on the US trend, the European Union can expect hundreds of backlogged animal patents to begin issuing if the European Patent Directive is adopted - as expected - by the European Parliament's Council of Ministers later this year.
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The final, 107-page report prepared by the US National Bioethics Advisory Commission on human cloning, accepted by President Clinton on 9 June, sends a clear signal to the biotech industry that it can move full speed ahead to commercialize the cloning of animals, including human beings," says Pat Mooney, Executive Director of RAFI. "The Commission seems to have sidestepped all the tough ethical issues," Mooney continues, "and has reduced the broad moral debate solely to a question of safety for mother and embryo."
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