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| Self replicating little parcels of carrots ready to be planted. |
There
is a case that has been heard by the US Supreme Court, Bowman vs.
Monsanto and we are awaiting their decision. I, for one, am not
hopeful that they will take the correct stance, which, of course
would be to eviscerate the patent on seeds altogether. The patent on
seeds is immoral and unethical and sets a horrid precedent: the forces
in favor of patents on seeds have no idea of the line they have
crossed in this matter.
In
fact, neither do the Supreme Court Justices and most of the American
public, but it is clear to those of us whose life's work is with seeds,
this is a horrible transgression onto the patenting of life. In
fact, Chief
Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked,"Why in the world, would
anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they
sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those
seeds as they want?" leaving me to hope he was just having a momentary loss of memory and doesn't
really believe that people did exactly that since agriculture began!
I
had the opportunity to be with Vandana Shiva this last week and hear
her cogent answers, marveling at her ability to synthesize answers
that not only answered the question, but enlightened the listener to
points they had not yet considered in the question. She told us
about the 200,000 varieties of rice in India – all bred
by peasants, different rice varieties for different fields for
example. But an observant rice farmer, peasant or not, sees a lot of
rice and a keen observer will find different varieties – in fact,
it was Luther Burbank's keen eye (not magical genius) that gave the
world the Burbank Potato, still the most popular baking potato in the
world today over 100 years later. He spotted one potato plant with some flowers that produced some seeds (not a common
thing, potatoes are almost always propagated by cutting the tubers
into chunks and planting them, rarely by seed). He harvested the seeds and a seedling from those seeds became the
famous potato that keeps Idaho on the map.
Prior
to the 1950's, almost all plant breeding in the US was done by
farmers – with the expectation that they would profit very little
from the improvement of seed except by better crops. The idea of
patenting life was abhorrent to them, even if they wished to make
more profit on their new line of seeds. The lack of patents did not
slow down the process of finding new and better plants - and this is an important point the bio-tech corporations wish to ignore - we never needed patents before them and their derelict technology!
But
business empires are not built on 'what we used to do,' so once the
chemical company decided it wanted to control the food supply, they
moved aggressively to get our government to protect their seed
varieties with patents. This is the genesis of our current
situation. It wasn't enough that chemical companies wanted to make
money, they wanted guarantees that they could make money on a scale
not seen in agriculture since the beginning of agriculture. The old
saw, “How do you make a million dollars farming? Start with two
million,” could be amended to, “How do you make a million dollars
farming? Start as a chemical company and buy yourself a government.”
Even
intelligent people argue for patent enforcement because if they let
replication occur in seeds, then what happens to software, recording
and so on. This is not a valid question and the questioner is not
thinking the thing through. Rolling the law back on seed patenting
would not in any way be applicable to these other patents – the
difference is obvious. The question really should be, if we allow
patents on seed, does this mean that a man should patent his own
sperm and a woman her eggs before a bio-tech company does it? Sperm
and eggs are more closely similar to a seed than a recording! A seed
is LIFE. A recording is NOT. Software is NOT.
In
fact, the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a case about
patenting human genetic material April 5th. Now I can see
scenarios happening that just a few years ago would have been seen as
crazy. What if I am given a genetically modified cure for
Alzheimer’s. Is my body now a bio-tech company property? What if
I have children and they, of course, inherit the cure? Are they
owned by the bio-tech company? Do they have to buy a license? After
all, like seeds, people are self-replicating!
Let
us be clear: a life cannot be patented regardless if that has a
deleterious effect on commerce. It does not matter.
Mind
you, only those who do not see the difference between a baby and a
recording or a seed and a software program imagine that one has
anything to do with another.
Patenting
life – any life – is a line we should NEVER have crossed. Now
that we've done it, we need to undo it as quickly as possible. It is
morally offensive and moves us towards re-establishing human slavery.
You'll
never get that with software or a recording.
david
