Suicide seeds on the fast track
"We've continued right on with work on the Technology Protection System [Terminator]. We never really slowed down. We're on target, moving ahead to commercialize it. We never really backed off." — Harry Collins, Delta & Pine Land Seed Co., January 2000.
A report released by the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) reveals that Terminator and Traitor technology are riding a fast track to commercialisation.
Terminator technology, the genetic engineering of plants to produce sterile seeds, is universally considered the most morally offensive application of agricultural biotechnology, since more than 1.4 billion people depend on farm-saved seeds. Traitor technology, also known as genetic use restriction technology (GURTs), refers to the use of an external chemical to switch on or off a plant's genetic traits.
"After Monsanto and AstraZeneca publicly vowed not to commercialise terminator seeds in 1999, governments and civil society organisations were lulled into thinking that the crisis had passed. Nothing could be further from the truth", said RAFI's executive director, Pat Mooney. "Despite mounting opposition from national governments and United Nations' agencies, research on Terminator and Traitor (genetic trait control) is moving full speed ahead."
According to RAFI, Delta & Pine Land, the world's largest cotton seed company, is moving aggressively to commercialise Terminator and, despite massive protests, the United States Department of Agriculture supports and defends the company's patent and research on suicide seeds.
Last year, AstraZeneca conducted field trials on genetic trait control technology in the United Kingdom. According to industry sources, it is not the first company to conduct field tests of this kind.
RAFI's report concludes that corporate commitments to disavow Terminator are virtually meaningless in light of the pace of corporate takeovers. On December 2, Novartis and AstraZeneca announced they would spin-off and merge their agrochemical and seed divisions to create the world's biggest agribusiness corporation, to be named Syngenta. On December 19, Monsanto announced that it will merge with drug industry giant Pharmacia & Upjohn to create a new company, Pharmacia, with combined annual sales of $17 billion.
The director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, recently declared his opposition to Terminator. Among the governments that have announced their intention to oppose Terminator technology are Panama, India, Ghana and Uganda.
India explicitly prohibits Terminator genes in a draft bill now before the Indian parliament. Ghanaian environment minister Cletus Avoka says his government will not tolerate the use of Terminator technology and Panama's minister of agriculture and fisheries writes that his government "will adopt measures to prohibit the specific patents as well as the technology in general".
Terminator and Traitor technologies are not limited to a single patent, nor is the research confined to one or two companies. Delta & Pine Land is currently the high-profile crusader for Terminator, but the goal of genetic trait control is industry-wide. According to RAFI, more than 30 patents are collectively held by the multinational agrochemical firms that dominate the field of biotechnology.
For more information, visit RAFI's web site at <http://www.rafi.org>.
[Abridged from Pesticide Action Network North America, 49 Powell St., Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94102 USA. E-mail <panna@panna.org> or visit <http://www.panna.org>.]