New patents for terminator seeds

Wednesday, February 10, 1999 - 11:00

New patents for terminator seeds

The Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) has announced that it has uncovered 36 new patents describing a wide range of techniques that can be used for genetic sterilisation of plants and seeds.

The disclosure follows on the heels of a controversial patent unveiled last year and christened the "Terminator" by RAFI. This patent, jointly owned by the US Department of Agriculture and a Monsanto subsidiary, continues to generate worldwide protest and debate because it renders farm-saved seed sterile and forces farmers to buy commercial seed every year.

According to RAFI, every major seed and agrochemical enterprise is developing its own version of Terminator seeds. Novartis, AstraZeneca and Monsanto are among the transnationals which have sterile seeds in the pipeline, while others like Pioneer Hi-Bred, Rhone Poulenc and DuPont have seed technologies that could easily be turned into Terminators.

"These technologies are extremely dangerous", explains Pat Mooney of RAFI, "because more than 1.4 billion farmers — primarily poor farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America — depend on farm-saved seed as their primary seed source. If they can't save seed, they can't continue to adapt crops to their unique farming environments, and that spells disaster for global food security."

The seed sterilisation patents uncovered by RAFI reveal that companies are developing "suicide" seeds whose genetic traits can be turned on and off by an external chemical "inducer" mixed with the company's patented agrochemicals. In the not-so-distant future, farmers may be planting seeds that will develop into productive (but sterile) crops only if sprayed with a carefully prescribed regimen that includes the company's proprietary pesticide, fertiliser or herbicide.

The latest version of Monsanto's suicide seeds won't germinate unless exposed to a special chemical, while AstraZeneca's technologies outline how to engineer crops to become stunted or otherwise impaired if not regularly exposed to the company's chemicals.

To read RAFI's report, Traitor Technology, visit <www.rafi.org>
or email <rafi@rafi.org>.

[Abridged from Pesticide Action Network North America Updates Service at <http://www.panna.org/panna/>.]