News Release | Monday 19 March 2001
ASIA SLIDES TOWARDS UPOV
A new report[1], written for a coalition of NGOs and farmers organizations working across Asia[2], shows that the world?s US$30bn/yr seed industry, dominated by giant agrochemical companies, is advancing in its quest to control agricultural research in the region. This new study shows that governments are harmonizing intellectual property laws on seeds for the benefit of transnational corporations along the lines of the UPOV Convention[3]. In the meantime, companies are using other legal means to protect what they claim as their intellectual property: agricultural biodiversity.
Asia?s farmers produce most of their seeds[4]. But transnational corporations are keen to elbow their way into what could be a very lucrative market, particularly with the advent of hybrid rice and genetically engineered crops. To secure the greatest market leverage, these corporations are lobbying Asian governments to adopt UPOV-type plant variety protection laws as implementation of the World Trade Organization?s intellectual property rules, known as TRIPS.
?Asian countries are trying to implement the 'sui generis' clause in TRIPS in the hope of simultaneously attracting foreign private sector investment for domestic R&D, providing some boost for their own public research systems and making farmers believe they?ll have a safety net from the full impact of these monopoly systems. But they are deluded,? Devlin Kuyek, the report?s researcher, said. ?The investments they are banking on are controlled by a few transnational life science companies, like Syngenta and Monsanto. UPOV-type plant variety protection is one tool for these corporations to divide the market among themselves -- but it is not, and never has been, a tool to organize research,? he pointed out.
The report shows that virtually all Asian countries have now drafted 'sui generis' plant variety protection systems as mandated by WTO. However, most of these systems are modelled on UPOV, in response to direct pressure from industrialized countries to harmonize IPR rules worldwide. The European Parliament, for example, has just approved a new aid package for Bangladesh which obliges Dhaka to join UPOV by 2006.
?This is outrageous,? said Farhad Mazhar of UBINIG, an NGO working to strengthen farmers? seed and livelihood systems throughout Bangladesh. ?Imposing UPOV on Bangladesh is going to wipe out our biodiversity. The companies which get this kind of protection will take over our food system and leave the farmers, who are breeders and seed producers of their own right, more marginalized than ever.?
The report exposes the biggest irony behind this rush to adopt UPOV-type plant variety protection laws in Asia. Companies are more interested in securing full-fledged patent protection over plants.
?Once Asian governments accept and enact PVP, it?s a short way further before they open up the patent system to plants and animals,? Kuyek warned. ?And once that is secured, there is little standing in the way of patents on any form of biodiversity-related material or knowledge.?
NOTES
1. ?Intellectual Property Rights: Ultimate Control
of Agricultural R&D in Asia?, March 2001. Electronic
version is available in HTML and PDF at
http://www.grain.org/adhoc.htm.
Hard copies can
be requested from the MASIPAG office, contact below. The
report was produced by a group of organizations and
individuals cooperating in a joint project on current
trends in agricultural R&D which will affect small farmers
in Asia.
2. Contacts: BIOTHAI: biothai(at)pacific.net.th or Tel (66-2) 952 73 71 ? KMP: kmp(at)quickweb.com.ph or Tel (63-2) 922 09 77 ? MASIPAG: masipag(at)mozcom.com or Tel (63-49) 536 61 83 ? PAN Indonesia: biotani(at)rad.net.id or Tel (62-21) 829 65 45 ? UBINIG: ubinig(at)citecho.net or Tel (880-2) 811 14 65 ? GRAIN: info(at)grain.org or Tel (34-93) 301 13 81 ? Devlin Kuyek: intku(at)hotmail.com or Tel (1-514) 287 97 26.
3. Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties. UPOV, based inside the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, is composed of mainly industrialized countries which offer patent-like rights over plant varieties.
4. Foe example, farmers in India are responsible for at least 60% of the annual seed supply, and in the Philippines over 80%.