ST. LOUIS - Too much power in the hands of just a few biotech giants is undermining the ability of farmers to fight hunger and poverty in developing countries, an agricultural research expert said on Tuesday.
``A steadily shrinking number of companies are gaining unprecedented control over all aspects of commercial food, farming and health,'' said Rural Advancement Foundation International research director Hope Shand, referring to companies including St. Louis, Missouri-based Monsanto Co., which she said dominated the genetically modified (GM) seed market.
Monsanto GM seeds account for 94 percent of the total area planted in commercial transgenic crops, or crops that have been genetically modified, worldwide, she said.
Rounding out Shand's list of so-called gene giants are DuPont Co., Syngenta Crop Protection Inc., Aventis CropScience and Dow AgroSciences LLC .
Shand spoke to agricultural leaders on the third day of the World Agricultural Forum's World Congress in St. Louis.
She said a push by the big biotech agricultural firms for greater control of their GM seed creations must be combated if world hunger and poverty problems are to be addressed.
Many of the companies have argued they are reluctant to share their crop-enhancing technologies with poor countries because lax enforcement of patents can lead to exploitation of the companies' intellectual property.
Shand, however, disputed that notion.
``There is little or no empirical evidence to support these claims,'' she said.
Shand said the companies' control of patented genes, traits and research tools was creating significant legal barriers that hurt public-sector and small-company efforts to advance accessible and affordable technologies to the countries that most need them.
In her presentation Tuesday, Shand called on biotech companies to become more ``people-centered,'' and less ''profit-centered.''
``Neglect of the public good is inevitable if the research agenda is based on pursuit of corporate profits instead of meeting human needs.''
Monsanto said last August it would provide royalty-free licenses for all of its gene technologies to help further develop ``golden rice,'' genetically engineered to provide nutritional benefits to those suffering from vitamin A deficiency-related diseases, including irreversible blindness in children.
Shand took issue with programs in which biotech firms require farmers using GM seeds to buy new seed every year, prohibiting them from saving seed from the crops they harvest, a traditional practice in world farming communities.
``Over 1.4 billion people, primarily poor farmers, depend on farm-saved seed as their primary seed source,'' she said. ''Farmers have been selecting seeds and adapting them for local use for over 200 generations. It is the key to maintaining and improving the world's food supply.''
``The issue is control,'' she said. ``The gene giants are using patented GM seeds to dictate how farmers will farm and under what conditions.''
Many developing nations are under pressure to adopt intellectual property rights. Indeed, the U.S. government proposed stronger patent protection in the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.
The issue will take center stage next month when the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations holds a negotiating session on plant genetic resources in Rome, to try to insure that genetic crop resources are accessible through a benefit-sharing plan.
|
If you have come to this page from an outside location click here to get back to mindfully.org |