Articles by Dr. Shiva
The Government Must Wake Up From Its Biopiracy Slumber
First it was the Neem and the Basmati.
Then our atta, our chapati, our wheat…
Giant corporations and rich countries have made it a habit to steal and patent our indigenous knowledge and our biodiversity.
And just as the police slept through the escape of Rana from Tihar jail the government has got into the habit of sleeping through this epidemic of biopiracy, till it is forced to wake up by our organisation, the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology filing a PIL.
Conagra the U.S. agribusiness company was granted Patent NO. 6,098,905 for "atta".
In 1996, Unilever/Monsanto were granted a patent (EP 518577) for claims to have "invented" the use of flour to make traditional kinds of Indian bread such as chapatis.
On May 21, 2003, the European Patent Office in Munich granted a patent with the number EP 445 929 and the simple title "plants". The patent holder is Monsanto, better known as the world's largest trader in genetically engineered plants. The patent covers wheat exhibiting a special baking quality. The cause of this special quality lies in a naturally occurring combination of genes which reduces the percentage of protein in the grains. Wheat with these characteristics was originally developed in India. Now Monsanto holds a monopoly on the farming, breeding and processing of this type of wheat.
Since a patent is an exclusive right based on invention, biopiracy patents harm the country's interest in 3 ways - they rob us of our claim to our scientific, intellectual and creativity, by allowing indigenous innovations to be treated as "inventions" of the biopirate. For this reason alone they need to be challenged. But they also have serious economic consequences. In the short run, a biopiracy patent robs us of markets overseas for our unique products. And if these trends are not challenged and IPR systems changed to prevent biopiracy, over time we will be paying royalties for what belongs to us and is necessary for everyday survival.
In reply to Parliamentary Question on the Monsanto wheat biopiracy, the Minister of Agriculture has replied, (starred question no. 8 dated July 21, 2003), "M/s Plant Breeding International, a Unilever company which was acquired by Monsanto in 1998 has obtained a patent for a new variety of wheat designed for use in Europe. This variety incorporates some characteristics of the Nap Hal land race of wheat from India. The Nap Hal land race is not covered by the European patent and continues to be available to Indian farmers and researchers".
When the Agriculture Minister states that Monsanto's wheat biopiracy patent will not affect the growing of "Nap Hal" in India, he is failing his national duty at two levels.
Firstly, no Indian variety is called "Nap Hal" which in Hindi means "no fruit". Farmers name their wheats according to traits and properties - khani, mundia, sita, kathia, jandi….. No farmers would name their varieties "no phal" because farmers breeding produces renewable open pollinated seeds which can be reproduced generation after generation, not "terminator seeds" and hybrids designed to not give seed after the harvest. We refer to "suphalam" -- the good fruit -- not "no phal" or "no fruit". This is a clear distortion of a name of Indian varieties of wheat when they were firstly transferred out from Indian collections.
Indian wheats have been documented and analysed and exchanged for more than a century.
Sir Albert Howard had systematically documented and selected India's wheat varieties in 1906 at Pusa, Bihar and Lyallpur in Punjab. He had described Indian wheats as some of the most superior varieties.
In 1879 about 1000 samples of wheat were taken to U.K. from India by order of the Governor of India. In 1879 a report was submitted by Dr. Forbes Watson, the director of the India Museum in London on Indian wheat.
However, our research has shown that the variety misnamed as "Naphal" was taken to U.K. and Europe from a U.S. collection at the National Small Grains Collection Aberdeen Idaho, U.S.A. the passport data of the wheat documented as "Naphal' is highly unreliable. It shows the collective to the W. Koelz of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It shows their sites of collection. On July 10, 1948, a collection is made at Meecha in U.P. at latitude 28o N, and longitude 180o E and 3050 metres altitude. On July 10, another collection is made at Sibu in Uttar Pradesh, latitude 28o N, longitude 80o E, elevation 3050 metres. On July 19, 1948, at Nabi, Uttar Pradesh, at latitude 29o 50' N and longitude 79o 30' East and altitude 2745 metres.
This record is inaccurate both because the local name is wrongly documented and because the latitudes, longitudes and altitude do not match. The altitudes are of villages in the high Himalayas, the latitudes and longitudes are for the plains of west U.P. It is possible that W. Koetz never went on a collection trip but was handed over the samples and the locations "cooked up". Instead of us the government should have been doing the work to trace which Indian wheat variety is being referred to as "no phal", how it reached the U.S. and European gene banks, and how Monsanto got hold of our genetic resources. However, not only has the government not traced, identified, and defended our indigenous wheat diversity and innovation embodied in traditional breeding, it has adopted the false name "no phal" and made a false claim that we do not need to worry.
This is equivalent to the police stating after "false" police helped Rana the accused in Phoolan Devi's murder, that Rana is in safe custody because he is in the hands of the false police. The theft of our biodiversity and indigenous knowledge has even more serious consequences than Rana's escape from Tihar. Yet the government continues to slumber and allow our biodiversity and traditional knowledge to be hijacked again and again.
There is a second reason why the Minister's reply in parliament misleads the nation. Even in the short run, Monsanto's wheat biopiracy patent robs us of markets for our unique low elasticity organic wheats.
The decisive patent claims concern soft-milling wheat in which the relevant genes are either not present or not active. The patent means in fact a monopoly on the genetic characteristics of Nap Hal plants and on all wheat plants which are crossed with the Indian variety. In addition, it covers the flour gained from this wheat as well as "dough produced from flour"…and "biscuits or the like, produced from flour…"
Western wheats need adding of Sodium Meta Bisulphate (SMS) to make wheat products crisp. Indian wheats need no chemicals, and in a period when consumers are becoming aware of the harmful affects of chemicals in food, India's "desi" wheats have a unique market potential, a potential that Monsanto wheat patent is robbing us of. And as long as the patent stand, it will rob us of our rights. Monsanto is upto its usual tricks when it states that because it is trying to sell its wheat business the patent does not hold. Just as patents were transferred from Unilever to Monsanto, they will be transferred from the Monsanto to another buyer. And as long as it is not challenged and revoked, it will deny us our indigenous creativity and economic benefits based on that creativity.
The government must wake up and become a partner in stopping this biopiracy. It must work with its citizens to protect the national legacy and national interest. If even our wheat and atta and chapatis do not belong to us, and others control them economically through intellectual property rights, the time is not far when the prayer "give us this day our daily bread" will become a prayer to Monsanto, instead of the creator.
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