First Egyptian Approval Of Genetically Modified Corn Raises Questions

Intellectual Property Watch

16 June 2008

First Egyptian Approval Of Genetically Modified Corn Raises Questions

Posted by William New @ 4:38 pm

By Wagdy Sawahel for Intellectual Property Watch
With Egypt’s recent approval of the cultivation and commercialisation of a pest-resistant corn variety that marked the first legal introduction of genetically modified crops into the Arab world, the Egyptian scientific community is having mixed reactions.

The approval of a genetically modified crop variety owned by biotechnology company Monsanto was based on a recommendation made by the Egyptian National Biosafety Committee and Seed Registration Committee as a result of experimental field trials. These trials revealed that the infestation of three corn borers - pests that can destroy a corn crop - was “negligible or completely prevented in Bt plants throughout the whole season and the different times of sowing dates.” Report results available here.

The approval is detailed in a 16 April report of the Global Agriculture Information Network published by the US Department of Agriculture, available here [pdf].

Called Ajeeb-YG, the pest-resistant corn variety was produced by crossing Monsanto YieldGard Bt Insect Resistant Corn (MON 810) with an Egyptian maize variety called Ajeeb. It will be distributed this month to Egyptian farmers by Cairo-based company Fine Seeds International.

As a result, the Egyptian scientific community has had mixed reactions, some expressing concerns over health, environmental, socioeconomic, political and ownership-related issues.

Magdy Massoud of the plant protection department of the faculty of agriculture at the University of Alexandria in Egypt, who was involved in carrying out the experimental field trials, told Intellectual Property Watch: “All studies prove the importance of Bt corn for Egypt, where it increase yield and reduce the use of chemical insecticides and maintains the role of the beneficial natural enemies as it only harms the targeted borers.”

But Nagib Nassar, Egyptian professor of genetics and plant breeding at University of Brazil, told Intellectual Property Watch, “At the end of the day what was originally an Egyptian variety will become not only registered in Egypt but owned by Monsanto, and Egyptian scientists will end up only making the backcrossing as the ancient Egyptian was doing.”

GM Plants - from Partnership to Ownership?

This means, said Tarek Saif, biotechnologist at Egypt’s National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Egypt’s collaboration with Monsanto started with the word “partnership” to pave the way for public acceptance of GM plant and ended with “ownership” for Monsanto.

“How did an Egyptian variety become owned by Monsanto just as a result of crossing it with its line?” Saif asked.

Saif said that at present Monsanto is developing insect resistant long-staple GM cotton by crossing Egyptian elite germplasm with Monsanto’s Bollgard II.

“If this so-called ‘partnership’ is transformed into ‘ownership’ as in the case of Bt corn, the socioeconomic impact on Egypt will be severe as Egyptian cotton is known as one of the world’s finest quality and our most important agricultural export.”

But Mohammad Taeb, technology transfer expert and former coordinator of the research and human capacity development programme at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Japan-based United Nations University said, “Activities of the private sector in producing and cultivating GM crops is unavoidable and perhaps necessary. However, what makes the issue controversial in developing countries is the lack of a legal and regulatory framework for the operation of GM-producing companies.”

Taeb added that “partnership is an important mechanism of technology transfer from developed to developing countries.” But to capture the opportunity, he said, “developing countries require a minimum institutional capability to benefit from partnerships, otherwise companies come and reap commercial benefits in developing countries and give nothing in return.”

Taeb pointed out that “the question to be raised is whether Egypt is organised enough to benefit from this partnership with Monsanto or not. If it is going to benefit, how will that happen, and who are the players?”

“The ownership of corn or cotton GM crops per se is not an important matter because you cannot maintain the variety for indefinite time,” Taeb said. “The varietals’ purity will degenerate in time unless you have access to the parents and could reconstitute the original genetic configuration.”

Therefore, he said, “What matters here most is the technical know-how that is used in making the GM corn or cotton. If that technical know-how is transferred to Egypt, the presence of Monsanto would be welcomed.”

“But what I have seen in real world is the inability of developing countries to absorb advanced technology brought by foreign firms which again goes back to the issue of institutional capacity in developing countries to manage technology transfer,” Taeb concluded.

Socioeconomic Impact of GM Plants on Small Farmers

Nassar said that this Bt corn variety will “bear a heavy economic cost on the shoulder of small farmer,” adding, “It remains to be seen what is the content of the contract called “Technology Use Agreement (TUA)” which farmers will have to sign and what legal actions and fines waiting for them if they violate the contract?”

Some TUAs stipulate that farmers cannot save seed for replanting and farmers are prohibited from supplying seed to anyone else.

Moreover, Nassar added, “poor farmers will be obligated to destroy any seed for future plantation. They must buy from the multinational [company] new seed for plantation. When farmers destroy seed, they destroy in the meantime genetic variability which may benefit future plantation.

Nassar expected that the reproduction of corn seeds at the Egyptian village level will be disrupted leading to the broken of the agricultural cycle, which enables farmers to store their seeds and plant them to reap the next harvest.

Nassar added, “Egyptian small and poor farmers depend on rotation as a way of natural fertilisation to their soil by nitrogen fixation [caused by bacteria]. This will not be possible in future. Simply because toxin produced by the Bt plant, mixed with soil will kill nitrogen fixing bacteria”

Political, Environmental and Health Impact

Saif warned of the political impact of the cultivation and commercialisation of a Bt corn variety in Egypt.

“Egyptian corn farmers will become dependent on foreign companies for their corn seed supply and for the costly fertilizer, insecticide and herbicide which might destroy their autonomy and control of seed, their livelihoods and cultural traditions,” Saif told Intellectual Property Watch.

Nassar said, “What may be more alarming is the local effect of this Bt maize plant on bees and wildlife, especially in a heavy density of humanity, plants and animals in Nile delta as well as the regional effect of contaminating seeds of neighbouring countries which still prohibit Bt corn, such as Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia and others.”

Mohamed El-Defrawy, professor of population genetics at faculty of agriculture of Assuit University in Egypt told Intellectual Property Watch, “I am of the fierce opponents of GM plants release in Egypt as no one knows its consequences on agricultural as well as wild populations.”

The Way Forward

To address the potential negative impacts of GM corn, Magdi Tawfik Abdelhamid, plant biotechnologist at Cairo’s National Research Centre, said: “Research on the different socioeconomic, environmental, health and agronomic issues surrounding GM crops must be done, and an in-depth assessment must be conducted of the country’s agricultural food and rural development policies and in particular, how GM plants benefit the poor as well as programmes for awareness about GM crops among the public and farmers in particular must be set up to ensure proper public consultations.”

Abdelhamid added that Egypt needs to promote GM plant research and development and to develop its own Bt maize using local technology to protect its small-scale farmers.

“Biosafety measures in Egypt need to be strengthened by approving the biosafety legislation which has not been presented to Parliament yet,” Abdelhamid concluded.

Currently, GM plants are regulated in Egypt by a framework including ministerial decrees and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.

The 2002 Egyptian law on the protection of intellectual property rights endorsed the patentability criteria as stipulated in the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Taeb said. But, he said TRIPS gives freedom to international agro-industrial companies to enter developing country seed markets and to acquire IP rights on plant varieties.

Wagdy Sawahel may be reached at info@ip-watch.ch.

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Faults in the vault: not everyone is celebrating Svalbard

As published by GRAIN here:

February 2008

Faults in the vault: not everyone is celebrating Svalbard

GRAIN

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Update: please see our clarification at the end of the article

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After months of extraordinary publicity, and with the apparently unanimous support of the international scientific community, the "Global Seed Vault" was officially opened today on an island in Svalbard, Norway. Nestled inside a mountain, the Vault is basically a giant icebox able to hold 4.5 million seed samples in cold storage for humanity's future needs. The idea is that if some major disaster hits world agriculture, such as fallout from a nuclear war, countries could turn to the Vault to pull out seeds to restart food production. However, this "ultimate safety net" for the biodiversity that world farming depends on is sadly just the latest move in a wider strategy to make ex situ (off site) storage in seed banks the dominant – indeed, only – approach to crop diversity conservation. It gives a false sense of security in a world where the crop diversity present in the farmers' fields continues to be eroded and destroyed at an ever-increasing rate and contributes to the access problems that plague the international ex situ system.

Faulty assumptions

Cary Fowler, Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust and one of the main proponents of the Vault, says that the initiative "will rescue the most globally important developing-country collections of the world’s 21 most important food crops." While it's true that crop diversity needs to be rescued and protected, as irreplaceable diversity is being lost at an alarming scale, relying solely on burying seeds in freezers is no answer. The world currently has 1,500 ex situ genebanks that are failing to save and preserve crop diversity. Thousands of accessions have died in storage, as many have been rendered useless for lack of basic information about the seeds, and countless others have lost their unique characteristics or have been genetically contaminated during periodic grow-outs. This has happened throughout the ex situ system, not just in genebanks of developing countries. So the issue is not about being for or against genebanks, it is about the sole reliance on one conservation strategy that, in itself, has a lot of inherent problems.

The deeper problem with the single focus on ex situ seed storage, that the Svalbard Vault reinforces, is that it is fundamentally unjust. It takes seeds of unique plant varieties away from the farmers and communities who originally created, selected, protected and shared those seeds and makes them inaccessible to them. The logic is that as people's traditional varieties get replaced by newer ones from research labs – seeds that are supposed to provide higher yields to feed a growing population – the old ones have to be put away as "raw material" for future plant breeding. This system forgets that farmers are the world's original, and ongoing, plant breeders. To access the seeds, you have to be integrated into a whole institutional framework that most farmers on the planet simply don't even know about. Put simply, the whole ex situ strategy caters to the needs of scientists, not farmers

In addition, the system operates under the assumption that once the farmers' seeds enter a storage facility, they belong to someone else and negotiating intellectual property and other rights over them is the business of governments and the seed industry itself. In the case of most so-called public genebanks, the seeds are said to become part of "the public domain" if not "national sovereignty" (which increasingly translates to state ownership). The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which runs about 15 global genebanks for the world's most widely used staple food crops, has even set up a legal arrangement of "trusteeship" that it exercises over the treasure chest of farmers' seeds that it holds "on behalf of" the international community, under the auspices of the FAO. Yet they never asked the farmers whom they took the seeds from in the first place if this was okay and they left farmers totally out of the trusteeship equation.

The new Svalbard Vault lies squarely at the pinnacle of this faulty architecture and false assumptions, inevitably exacerbating these problems. Because it is a "doomsday" backup collection, it raises the stakes to new extremes. Nobody really knows for sure if the Vault will be effective in keeping the seeds alive and its security is untested. Just days before the opening of the Vault, Svalbard was at the centre of the biggest earthquake in Norway's history, even though the facility's feasibility study assured that "there is no volcanic or significant seismic activity" in the area. But more troubling than any technical matter is the issue of access, the keys to which are held by few hands.

Access and benefit ills

The Vault is not immune from the terrible controversies over access to and benefits from the world's precious agricultural biodiversity. The Norwegian government is ultimately responsible for the Vault and is currently regarded as fair and trustworthy, but there is no guarantee that the country's policies won't change. This is acknowledged by the Norwegian government itself, which has provided agreements to be signed with depositors that last only ten years and that include clauses allowing them to be terminated if policies change. Probably more important, the Norwegian government will not be making decisions autonomously. Decisions will be shared with the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a private entity with strong private and corporate funding.

There are already some access issues with the Vault. For all practical purposes, seeds cannot be stored in the Vault unless they come from genebanks that have successfully duplicated their samples in another bank. More than this, depositors are not allowed to put in seeds that are already stored in the Vault. The Standard Depositor Agreement states that the "Depositor shall deposit only samples of plant genetic resources that are, to the best of the Depositor’s knowledge,.. samples of plant genetic resources that have not yet been deposited in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault" and that "the Depositor recognizes the right of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food to refuse to accept samples for deposit or to terminate the deposit of samples already deposited if the samples constitute duplicates of materials already held in deposit in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault".

As a rule, only depositors can access their own collections at Svalbard, or give permission for someone else to. With parcels of CGIAR seeds already arriving in Norway, this means that the CGIAR Centres will be the depositors for most of the seeds held in the Vault, giving them almost exclusive control over access. Indeed, as the Seed Vault feasibility study indicates, it was "assumed that the [Vault] would begin operations with a nucleus consisting of the CGIAR materials and those of certain key national genebanks and that this (sic) 'founding collections' would discourage subsequent unnecessary duplication of materials within the Svalbard facility." Out of the 19 depositor institutes that have registered with the Vault so far, only three are national seed banks from developing countries. The Vault, then, is not a safe deposit box for just anyone. It is mostly the CGIAR's private stash.

In practical terms this means that many developing countries that want to duplicate their collections in Svalbard would not be able to do so directly. It would be seen as a duplicate of what the CGIAR has already deposited. They will not, therefore, have direct access to seeds in the Vault that may have been collected from their country. This might not seem to pose many concerns right now because governments have different backup sources for seeds but the context would be vastly different under any doomsday scenario where decisions would have to be taken over a critical, unique resource which suddenly only remains in Svalbard. For farmers there is pretty much no possibility for direct access to seeds in the Vault.

But doomsday aside, it is important to ask who really benefits from the ex situ system that the Vault contributes to. As the few transnational seed corporations that control over half the world's US$30 billion annual commercial seed market are increasingly buying up public plant breeding programmes and governments are pulling out of plant breeding, the ultimate beneficiaries will be the very same corporations that are at the roots of crop diversity destruction.

Stop destroying diversity instead!

If governments were truly interested in conserving biodiversity for food and agriculture, they would do two things. First, they would, as a central priority, focus their efforts on supporting diversity in their countries' farms and markets rather than only betting on big centralised genebanks. This means leaving seeds in the hand of local farmers, with their active and innovative farming practices, respecting and promoting the rights of communities to conserve, produce, breed, exchange and sell seeds. But this won't happen until governments turn agricultural policy and regulations upside down and stop pushing for industrialisation and feeding corporate-controlled global markets at the expense of letting farmers freely feed their own communities and countries. This means making food sovereignty the foundation of farm policy instead of continuously pushing agriculture further down the destructive path of corporate-led global market integration.

Svalbard is about putting diversity away, in case of some hypothetic emergency. The real urgency, however, is to let diversity live – in farms, in the hand of farmers, and across people-controlled and community-oriented markets – today.

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Clarification by GRAIN:

In the initial days following the release of this Against the grain on 26 February 2008, a concern was expressed that our article may have been suggestive of a conspiracy linking the Vault, the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the world's seed multinationals. This is a misunderstanding which, fortunately, did not arise in subsequent feedback and media coverage of the article. Our point was that the Vault and ex situ collections in general (and especially the institutions involved in the management of these collections) are enmeshed in a current global context where a handful of corporations have come to dominate plant breeding and to aggressively use patents and other mechanisms to monopolise access to and control over seeds. In such a context, even when intentions are completely honourable, issues relating to access and control of materials held by any genebank are extremely important and unavoidable, and must be thoroughly addressed. We hope that discussion and debate over the Vault, and over genebanks in general, continues along these grounds.

It has also been pointed out to us that the quote from Cary Fowler (paragraph #2) was in actuality not in reference to the Vault itself but to an 'initiative" of the Global Trust, linked to the Vault, to "rescue" seeds in genebanks in developing countries. We regret any misunderstandings this may have caused. For Fowler's more recent, specific comments on the Vault, please see the 29 February 2008 article in the NY Times.

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Going further:

Aasa Christine Stoltz, "Norway's biggest quake hits Svalbard archipelago," Reuters, 21 February 2008.

http://www.reuters.com/ article/environmentNews/idUSL2173668320080221

Norwegian government and the Svalbard vault:

http://www.nordgen.org/sgsv/

Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Svalbard vault: http://www.croptrust.org/main/arctic.php?itemid=216

International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

http://www.planttreaty.org/

GRAIN, "The FAO seed treaty: from farmers' rights to breeders' privileges," Seedling, October 2005.

http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=411

Center for International Environment and Development Studies et al, "Study to assess the feasibility of establishing a Svalbard Arctic seed depository for the international community", prepared for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, 14 September 2004.

http://www.regjeringen.no/ en/dep/lmd/campain/svalbard-global-seed-vault/ publications.html?id=463313

Svalbard Global Seed Vault – Standard Depositor Agreement. http://www.nordgen.org/ sgsv/index.php?page=depositor_guidelines

Tay Gipo, Filipino Rice Farmer at the Opening Conference of the Global Seed Vault

As published here:

Tay Gipo, Filipino Rice Farmer at the Opening Conference of the Global Seed Vault

Tay Gipo (Eulogio Sasi Jr.) was the lone farmer voice during the Opening Conference of the Global Seed Vault, last 25 February 2008. On the invitation of the Ministry of Agriculture of Norway, Tay Gipo delivered a speech before an international audience of more than 250 people in Longyearbyen, who were likewise invited to witness the opening of the global seed vault. In his speech, Tay Gipo shared his experiences as an ordinary rice farmer (he is a tenant) in President Roxas, North Cotabato - how he developed new rice varieties and cared for his farm. He called the attention of everyone present, and the world around, to similarly give attention to the work of farmers in conserving and developing diversity in their farms. Reminding everyone present about the equal importance of farmers' work in conservation and the very reason for the existence of the seed vault and the work of most of the invitees. Below is his speech in English.

To the organizers of this program, to visitors from other nations, to all the farmers, a good day to all of you.

It is a great honor for me to attend this occasion. I still could not imagine that I am here. Even in my dreams, I could not imagine that this will happen – to come here, stand and talk in front of all of you.

For a poor and a simple farmer like me, it seems impossible and hard to face and address you all: this is very far from the Philippines. I thought I could not make it here because I do not have a birth certificate.

I was born on June 8, 1944 in La Castellana, Negros Occidental, Philippines. It was in the middle of the Second World War, which was why my parents were not able to register me.

I was still young when my family migrated from Visayas to Mindanao where we now reside that is why I did. Because I only reached 4^th grade in primary school, I did not bother getting my documents as I don’t need them, because I am just a farmer. But I learned, that all these documentation are needed in getting a passport, in being able to come here. Of course, you also need a visa.

It occurred to me, how many farmers like me will be able to have an opportunity to get here just to see the seed bank? It seems quite impossible for an ordinary farmer that does not have any means to pay for the fare and capacity to process papers to come here. That is why, I am very thankful for this invitation.

I would like to share to all of you my experiences as an ordinary farmer. How I was able to raise my family from farming.

I started farming in 1957. I was 12 years old then, when I helped my father with farm work. I remembered that we’ve used traditional varieties like hinumay, Camayo and Zambales.

We did not use fertilizers and pesticides to kill pests attacking our crops. That was the situation of farmers from 1950s to 1965.

In 1966, I was able to till my own farm because it was also the time that I settled down and started building my own family. It was in 1967 when the first high yielding varieties from IRRI arrived at our place, along with fertilizers and pesticides.

Diseases like rice tungro virus also appeared. You would not see pests in your field when this is attacked by tungro, leaves just turn to yellow.

The result is that rice plants don’t bear good grains. Many farmers were affected by the tungro virus because a lot of us, planted high yielding varieties.

In 1985, another HYV named IR68 was released by IRRI. Allegedly this is resistant to tungro. I bought 2 sacks from a cooperative in our place. I planted it on my field but it was still attacked by tungro.

But from that IR68, I observed 1 rice plant which is different in features and it was not attacked by tungro virus. I got fascinated with that single plant because it has a different color and a different stand but the grains ripened later than IR 68. I tied, 6 panicles from that plant.

When I harvested the rest of the IR68, what was left was the plant I selected. But something happened with that rice plant because the carabao went over it and started eating the plant! Good thing I noticed it in time, I pulled and snatched away the 4 remaining panicles from the carabao’s mouth.

The next cropping season, I planted the seeds individually from those 4 panicles and these resulted to profuse tillers. 1 plant produced 60-80 tillers with the majority having 80 tillers. During harvest, I could not believe it, I was able to harvest 25 kilograms just from the 4 panicles I’ve planted! I repeated the process the next cropping season.

I planted bulk of the 25 kilograms in 0.75 hectares and the remaining seeds in another lot covering about 1,350 square meters. I was able to harvest 115 sacks from the 0.75 hectares and another 17 sacks from the 1,350 square meters. All in all, from the 25 kg seeds, I harvested 132 sacks.

I tried ratooning the rice in the 0.75 hectare-lot and new rice plants emerged which enabled me to harvest another 28 sacks.

In 1987, other farmers in our place started noticing my rice plant and many started asking and exchanging seeds. Others bought the seeds, such that the seeds easily spread in our place. Many asked what is the name of the rice I selected. I thought of naming it BORDAGOL.. BORDAGOL is a comic character from a children’s funny comics. .

I chose this name because the character, Bordagol in the cartoon strip has a good trait and was able to save their planet. I thought that like the cartoon character, this plant could help us farmers because according to our elders, if a rice plant possesses purple tillers, it is resistant to disease. That was how Bordagol got its name. Until 1990, Bordagol was used by farmers in our place and in other places as well. I was also investigated by IRRI that time because of my discovery of that rice variety.

In September 1, 1993, because of Bordagol, I received a Plaque of Recognition for being one of the “Most Outstanding Farmer Achiever” from the Provincial Government of North Cotabato, Philippines.

In 1992, I was approached by Mr. Rene Salazar and Frank Magnifico of SEARICE and they encouraged me to participate in their program. I joined and learned more about rice breeding and other farm technologies.

In 1997, I tried breeding Bordagol with Basmati. It took me 5 years before I was able to stabilize and release the seeds. I called these GIFTS (Genetically Improved Farm Technology of Seeds). To date, I maintain GIFTS 12, GIFTS 18, GIFTS 20 and GIFTS 21. A number of farmers in our place are already planting these seeds.

When I was invited to talk on this Opening of the Seed Vault, I was quite hesitant and with mixed emotions.. I am embarrassed to talk in front of many people, especially in front of important people, like all of you.

When I was asked me what I think about the seed vault, I replied “ I do not know” because we farmers are used to storing seeds through continually planting the seeds in our farms so that the seeds would not be lost. We conserve the seeds by hanging and air drying the panicles, we exchange seeds with fellow farmers so that the seeds will spread to other places. This is how we ensure that our seeds will not be lost. This has been our practice since I was young and with God’s mercy, we were able to get by, even meeting all needs of my family just through farming.

The important thing for us farmers is that our seeds should just be by our side, so that we could plant for the next season or we can use the seeds for breeding. I could not imagine how I would be able to use the seeds that will be stored here, this is too far from my farm. I do not also know how it would be possible for me to share my seeds to other farmers if my seeds are stored here in Svalbard. I was told, it is possible for me to store my seeds here, but how will I bring the seeds and get the seeds here? Maybe, these would require a lot of paper works.

I do not know how, but I hope that the seed vault that will be opened today, can help small farmers today and in the next generation. While we are celebrating the opening of the Seed Vault and depositing of seeds here, I hope that the efforts of farmers will not be deposited and forgotten here. We , farmers, are helping in the conservation of seeds. We are developing new seeds. That the seeds to be stored in the seed vault and are in the seed vault now, were nurtured through our own hands and knowledge.

I hope that the knowledge that goes with the seeds will not just be stored in ice, but be further enriched by giving support to the work of farmers.

If there is great attention accorded by the world on seed banks, I hope the concerned agencies will provide equal or more attention and support to our conservation efforts done through continuous use, enrichment of knowledge and development of new seeds. I hope governments will provide support to farmers including fair and better prices for our products.

This is all I can say. Thank you very much.

as reported by the svalbard global seed vault here, which includes the significant contributions of farmers from the world over, as represented by Tay Gipo, a Filipino farmer:

Svalbard Global Seed Vault: Summary of the Svalbard Conference

The Conference “Svalbard Global Seed Vault - Saving Seeds for Eternity?” included as speakers representatives from a range of organizations and areas of expertise that contributed to the development of the Seed Vault. Read more in the summary of the conference.

The conference was held on the 25 th. of February, the day before the official ceremonial opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Summary of the Svalbard Conference

Draft - Nancy Hart
The Conference “Svalbard Global Seed Vault - Saving Seeds for Eternity?” included as speakers representatives from a range of organizations and areas of expertise that contributed to the development of the Seed Vault and also will be in a position to benefit from its existence. The fact that the title of the conference was presented as a question challenged the speakers to put the Seed Vault into both an immediate and long-term perspective. The conference was held the day before the official ceremonial opening of the Seed Vault.

Why a Seed Vault? Why Norway? Why Svalbard

Terje Riis-Johansen, Norwegian Minister of Agriculture and Food
“Norway is well aware of farmers’ contributions”
Norwegian Minister of Agriculture and Food, Terje Riis-Johansen, set the tone for the conference held in connection with the opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. In his talk, he paid homage to the work that has gone on in the international community in the past two decades that set the stage for the Seed Vault.

He recounted the Nordic Gene Bank’s efforts, in the early 1980s, to find a safe place for its security collection and the fact that it chose to store those valuable seeds in an old Svalbard mine very close to the location chosen for the Seed Vault. The success of that endeavor made them believe in the viability of the Seed Vault project.

“Of course, it never would have happened without the parallel evolution in the global community which led to establishment of a legal framework that provides common rules for the sharing of genetic diversity among nations. It brought the right mix of policy-makers, politicians and government leaders together with scientists and farmers and allowed this idea to be discussed in formal and informal settings.”

During his talk, Minister Riis-Johansen announced Norway’s commitment to support plant-breeding efforts in poor countries. Starting in 2009, the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food will make annual payments equal to 0.01 percent of the values of seeds sold in Norway to the benefit-sharing fund of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources that supports on-farm conservation efforts in developing countries.

“We all know that the real work of selecting, conserving and improving crop diversity has taken place in farmer’s fields throughout the millennia. The establishment of this vault does not curtail that effort at all. The Government of Norway is well aware of farmers’ contributions and, for us, it’s ‘pay-back time.” He further challenged other OECD countries to make the same commitment.

Opening address

Dr Jacques Diouf , Director-General, UN Food and Agriculture Organization
“… We all share a common future …”
In calling seeds “the vehicles of life”, Dr Jacques Diouf, Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, pointed out that current global population trends indicate that the world will have 9 billion inhabitants by 2050, 3 billion more than today. He also noted that cereal production will have to increase by 50 percent in the next 25 years to keep up with demand.

Calling the Seed Vault “one of the most innovative and impressive acts in the service of humanity,” Dr. Diouf said that the seeds that will be housed in the Seed Vault will be essential for increasing crop productivity, mitigating environmental stress such as climate change, pests and diseases, and ensuring a genetic resource base for the future.

Dr. Diouf also recognized that the way to the Seed Vault’s establishment had been paved by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The International Treaty, already ratified by 116 countries, has ensured conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources with fair and equitable sharing of benefits.

“We may live in a world divided by inequalities but we all share a common future,” he said. “No country is self sufficient in natural resources and all are ecologically interdependent. Wealth safeguarded in Svalbard will be global insurance to solve future challenges. Today, I urge countries to join the effort to securing world’s crop diversity now and in the future.”

Safe harbour in a perfect storm - the story of the Vault in the context of threats facing agriculture

Dr Cary Fowler, Executive Director, Global Crop Diversity Trust
“Death of a thousand cuts”
Dr. Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the organization entrusted with securing the funds to endow the worlds crop gene banks as well as overseeing the maintenance of the Seed Vault, is also referred to as the visionary whose lead position on the original feasibility study led to the construction of the Seed Vault. In addressing the Conference, Dr. Fowler referred to the current world situation in terms of viability for feeding future generations as “the perfect storm of challenges,” ranging from climate change, declines in energy and water availability, development pressures and a burgeoning population.

"Diversity is threatened by climate change. On the other hand we're going to have to be making some major changes in the nature of the crops we have in the fields, which is going to require diversity. If ever there was a moment in history when conserving this diversity was worthwhile and yielded a great cost benefit ratio, it would be now," he said.

In referring to the threat to the viability of seed collections currently held in gene banks as well as to diversity of crops growing in the field, he called it “more than an apocalypse.”

“It is death of a thousand cuts. We loose diversity every day - which is a benign way of saying it is becoming extinct. We are dependent,” he said pointing to a chart showing the percentage of crop samples currently held in gene banks, huge collections that represent only a small portion of the total. “We are all in the same boat and if we don’t learn to share and cooperate, that will be a sinking boat.”

Plant genetic resources conservation from a farmer’s point of view

Tatay Gipo, Filipino rice farmer
“From the 25 kilos, I harvest 132 sacks of rice”
When Tatay Gipo introduced himself to the conference participants by showing photos from his family album, it was the perfect illustration of how individual farmers have potential to help the world’s agricultural production. Mr. Gipo only reached the fourth grade in school, and started farming when he was 12 years old. Yet he comes from many generations of farmers who have passed farming knowledge to him and because of his background, Mr. Gipo is credited with the discovery and development of a new robust rice variety.

When he began farming in 1957, he used traditional varieties and used pesticides to kill the pests that attacked the crops. In 1966 he built his own farm and in 1967, the first varieties arrived from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) along with fertilizers and pesticides. But still, diseases appeared in the field.

In 1985, he adopted a high-yielding variety of rice that had been developed by IRRI. Yet, that variety also was attacked by pests. However, he observed that one plant in his field was not attacked by the virus. It was a different color and had a different stand, so he saved it.

“The next cropping season,” he said, “I planted it. During the harvest, I could not believe I could harvest 25 kilos from the seeds that I had saved. I repeated it the next season. From the 25 kilos, I harvest 132 sacks of rice.”

In 1993, Mr. Gipo received recognition as one of the outstanding farmers from the local government. He then set about learning about crop breeding and crop technologies. The NGO SEARICE, Philippines, has provided him with training and from the original variety discovered, he has made more than 10 crosses and is maintaining 15 lines from a cross he made between bordagol and basmati rice.

The role of crop diversity for food security

Maria Mayer de Scurrah, President Grupo Yanapai
“Food security comes from variety”
Speaking on behalf of Peruvian potato farmers, Maria Mayer de Scurrah, president of Grupo Yanapai of Lima, offered impressive numbers. Peru has nine species of potatoes, the average farming family farms eight varieties and the average community has 122 varieties.

“In the world,” she said, “you know ‘potato’, but in Peru, we grow ‘potatoes’. We know that food security comes from varieties. Everyone shares.”

Grupa Yanapai is an NGO working on research and development of small-scale farming, especially on conservation of plant genetic resources and development of low input technology. Her work has included research in areas once inhabited by Incan population where she found a very important native variety was growing but also two wild species. “The question is whether the wild species are still interacting with our crops.”

The farmers used to farm with huge community fields in which the individual farmers moved in rotation, taking their own varieties with them. This was a good defense against disease because the plantings changed each year. Now, they have moved to family plots which means they now must deal more with diseases.

Arctic climate change and global consequences

Pål Prestrud, Director CICERO
“Warming in the Arctic is at twice the rate of the global average”
The Arctic zone is experiencing some of the most rapid and severe climate change on earth, according to Pål Prestrud, Director of the Norwegian Climate Change Center (CICERO). “The warming in the Arctic is at twice the rate of the global average,” he said.

The reason for the faster increase is because snow and ice reflect solar radiation while open water captures it. Thus, as temperatures increase and snow and ice melts, there is more water, meaning more radiation is captured. In addition, as the sea ice melts, the water below it warms up and decreases the amount of freezing for the following year. This scenario has meant that the reduction of the snow cover is moving much faster than predicted, with an 8-9 percent reduction in the last 50 years. In addition he points to changes such as spring arriving 2-3 weeks earlier in the Arctic, Alaska’s growing increasing by one and a half months, and the melting glaciers in Svalbard that have potential to increase sea level by 6-7 meters.

He said this will have both global and local consequences. “Globally,” he explained, the huge amounts of carbon stored in the permafrost will be released. There is more carbon stored in organic material and methane hydrates in the permafrost than is found in the atmosphere. Cold water absorbs more CO2 than warm water, so as the water warms up, less CO2 will be captured.”

Locally, people will face enormous challenges. “Although the warmer temperatures may mean more opportunity for agriculture, it will affect the biodiversity. We have a community of animals and plants connected to the ice.” In addition, there will be more accessibility for exploitation of mineral resources which will impact land values.

In addition, in just a few years, it will be possible to go between North America and Europe via the Arctic Circle. This will have enormous political ramifications.

Future challenges regarding plant genetic resources and the role of the global seed vault

Patrick Mooney, Executive Director ETC group
“We need seeds in the vault”
In praising Norway for its contribution of the Global Seed Vault and its commitment to contribute to the benefit-sharing fund of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Patrick Mooney, Executive Director of ETC group also warned that “we are not there yet.”

Referring to a “lack of trust”, Mooney sated that “if we are going to survive climate change, we need the ecosystem knowledge of farmers. If we are going to have a chance to adjust and shift to threats, we need the farmers to help us.”

Farmers, he said, “have the ability to adjust. They were able to do it in the past and have the capacity to use it today, in situ. But, above all, there must be trust”

Mooney, who has some 30 years experience working with civil society organizations dealing with agriculture and biodiversity, spoke of what caused the problems of trust among farmers, scientists and governments in the first place. He listed genetic erosion of crops caused by monoculture farming practices of industrial agriculture, marketplace pressures, trade barriers and international property issues. “Problems,” he says, “that are still there.”

He recounted that 30 years ago there were 30,000 seed enterprises listed by FAO. Today the top ten countries have 55 percent of the seed market and four countries have almost 100 percent of the GMO market. Along with this, there are new challenges such as extreme genetic engineering that brings with it a risk, “we must remember that we cannot depend on technology to solve our problems. We need seeds in the vault.”

The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see.

The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see.


1 hr 49 min 0 sec - Mar 28, 2008
Average rating: (788 ratings)
Description: On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE – French-German cultural tv channel) by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see. The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.

The Coalition Against Biopiracy today calls for nominations for the Fifth Captain Hook Awards

As published by ETC Group

News Release
Coalition Against Biopiracy
7 March 2008
www.captainhookawards.org

Ahoy, Mates! The Coalition Against Biopiracy today calls for nominations for the Fifth Captain Hook Awards

*** Please Circulate to Your Networks throughout the Seven Seas ***

What's the most scandalous case of biopiracy[1] in your country? Who's ripping off indigenous knowledge in your community? Which privateer is most egregiously pillaging the global commons for profit? Who's monopolizing your genes or patenting your plants?

Nominate your least favorite pirate for a 2008 Captain Hook Award. All outrageous achievements in biopiracy deserve recognition!

Nominate your most admired biopiracy-resistor for a 2008 Cog Award. All those who have fought off biopirates, defeated predatory patents or otherwise foiled the nefarious plots of fiendish privateers deserve recognition. (Cog Awards are so-named because cogs were ships designed to repel pirate attacks.)

Send your nominations to hook@captainhookawards.org. The deadline for nominations is April 30, 2008.

The Coalition Against Biopiracy (CAB)[2] will host the Captain Hook awards ceremony at the Ninth Conference of the Parties (COP9) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Bonn, Germany 19-30 May 2008. This fifth Captain Hook Awards ceremony is preceded by ceremonies at COP8 in Curitiba, Brazil (2006), COP7 in Kuala Lumpur (2004), COP6 in The Hague (2002) and COP5 in Nairobi (2000).

"The Captain Hook Awards are held at the meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD to draw international attention to the Convention's failure to provide meaningful regulations to halt biopiracy," explains Chrisgel Cruz of SEARICE, a member of the Coalition Against Biopiracy. "It has been a decade and a half since the CBD entered into force, and, unfortunately, it's still smooth sailing under clear skies for biopirates."

Verónica Villa of ETC Group, another CAB member, points out the need for global participation to guarantee the success of the Captain Hook Awards. "Distinguishing extreme and egregious acts of biopiracy from those only moderately malevolent is not an easy task," says Villa. "CAB relies on the analysis and vigilance of organizations and people from all over the world who submit nominations along with supporting documentation," she says. Send your nominations to hook@captainhookawards.org.

You can also make nominations on the Captain Hook Awards web site, www.captainhookawards.org.

While many biopirates are frequent visitors to the winner's podium - Gene Giant Syngenta, perennial favorite Monsanto and the U.S. government, for example - many others are new to the pirates' den. The National Geographic Society (for its DNA-collecting Human Genographic Project) and Google (for its foray into the field of human genomics), for example, were first-time winners in 2006 at COP8 in Curitiba, Brazil. This year's winners may come from the new generation of biopirates, but it's too soon to count out biopiracy's old guard.

Here's how to nominate an offender for a Captain Hook Award or a bio-defender for a Cog Award:

Send a brief description of the case with enough supporting documentation for purposes of verification to hook@captainhookawards.org. Nominators may remain anonymous. The deadline for nominations is Wednesday April 30, 2008.

Once the nominated case is verified, it will be posted at www.captainhookawards.org. You can select from the following categories, but are encouraged to create your own category:

For Captain Hook Awards:
Greediest Biopirate
Most Offensive
Most Dangerous
Worst National Behaviour
Worst Threat to Food Sovereignty
Biggest Threat to Genetic Privacy

For Cog Awards:
Best Advocate
Best Peoples' Defense (institution, civil society organization)
Best Legal Defense
Best National Defense
Most Imaginative

For further information about biopiracy and the Captain Hook and Cog Awards, please contact:

Verónica Villa, ETC Group, veronica@etcgroup.org, 52-5555-6326-64 (Mexico)
Hope Shand, ETC Group, hope@etcgroup.org, 919-960-5223 (USA)
Alejandro Argumedo, Asociación ANDES, slfsal-peru@terra.com.pe (51)-84-248-021 (Peru)
Chrisgel Cruz, SEARICE, searice@searice.org.ph, tel: (63 2) 433-7182 (Philippines)

[1] Biopiracy refers to the appropriation of the knowledge and genetic resources of farming and indigenous communities by people or institutions that seek exclusive monopoly control (patents or intellectual property) over these resources and knowledge.
[2] The Coalition Against Biopiracy is an informal group of civil society and peoples' organizations that first came together at the 1995 Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Jakarta.

Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose; The Genetically Modified Food Gamble

From Multinational Monitor, as posted by Robert Weissman

Tuesday, March 18. 2008

Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose; The Genetically Modified Food Gamble

There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops.

Last month, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a pro-biotech nonprofit, released a report highlighting the proliferation of genetically modified crops. According to ISAAA, biotech crop area grew 12 percent, or 12.3 million hectares, to reach 114.3 million hectares in 2007, the second highest area increase in the past five years.

For the biotech backers, this is cause to celebrate. They claim that biotech helps farmers. They say it promises to reduce hunger and poverty in developing countries. "If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of cutting hunger and poverty in half by 2015," says Clive James, ISAAA founder and the author the just-released report, "biotech crops must play an even bigger role in the next decade.”

In fact, existing genetically modified crops are hurting small farmers and failing to deliver increased food supply -- and posing enormous, largely unknown risks to people and the planet.

For all of the industry hype around biotech products, virtually all planted genetically modified seed is for only four products -- soy, corn, cotton and canola -- with just two engineered traits. Most of the crops are engineered to be resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide sold by Monsanto under the brand-name Round-up (these biotech seeds are known as RoundUp-Ready). Others are engineered to include a naturally occurring pesticide, Bt.

Most of the genetically modified crops in developing countries are soy, says Bill Freese, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety and co-author of "Who Benefits from GM Crops," a report issued at the same time as ISAAA's release. These crops are exported to rich countries, primarily as animal feed. They do absolutely nothing to supply food to the hungry.

As used in developing countries, biotech crops are shifting power away from small, poor farmers desperately trying to eke out livelihoods and maintain their land tenure.

Glyphosate-resistance is supposed to enable earlier and less frequent spraying, but, concludes "Who Benefits from GM Crops," these biotech seeds "allow farmers to spray a particular herbicide more frequently and indiscriminately without fear of damaging the crop." This requires expenditures beyond the means of small farmers -- but reduces labor costs, a major benefit for industrial farms.

ISAAA contends that Bt planting in India and China has substantially reduced insecticide spraying, which it advances as the primary benefit of biotech crops.

Bt crops may offer initial reductions in required spraying, says Freese, but Bt is only effective against some pests, meaning farmers may have to use pesticides to prevent other insects from eating their crops. Focusing on a district in Punjab, "Who Benefits from GM Crops" shows how secondary pest problems have offset whatever gains Bt crops might offer.

Freese also notes that evidence is starting to come in to support longstanding fears that genetically engineering the Bt trait into crops would give rise to Bt-resistant pests.

The biotech seeds are themselves expensive, and must be purchased anew every year. Industry leader Monsanto is infamous for suing farmers for the age-old practice of saving seeds, and holds that it is illegal for farmers even to save genetically engineered seeds that have blown onto their fields from neighboring farms. "That has nothing to do with feeding the hungry," or helping the poorest of the poor, says Hope Shand, research director for the ETC Group, an ardent biotech opponent. It is, to say the least, not exactly a farmer-friendly approach.

Although the industry and its allies tout the benefits that biotech may yield someday for the poor, "we have yet to see genetically modified food that is cheaper, more nutritious or tastes better," says Shand. "Biotech seeds have not been shown to be scientifically or socially useful," although they have been useful for the profit-driven interests of Monsanto, she says.

Freese notes that the industry has been promising gains for the poor for a decade and a half -- but hasn't delivered. Products in the pipeline won't change that, he says, with the industry focused on introducing new herbicide resistant seeds.

The evidence on yields for the biotech crops is ambiguous, but there is good reason to believe yields have actually dropped. ISAAA's Clive James says that Bt crops in India and China have improved yields somewhat. "Who Benefits from GM Crops" carefully reviews this claim, and offers a convincing rebuttal. The report emphasizes the multiple factors that affect yield, and notes that Bt and Roundup-Ready seeds alike are not engineered to improve yield per se, just to protect against certain predators or for resistance to herbicide spraying.

Beyond the social disaster of contributing to land concentration and displacement of small farmers, a range of serious ecological and sustainability problems with biotech crops is already emerging -- even though the biotech crop experiment remains quite new.

Strong evidence of pesticide resistance is rapidly accumulating, details "Who Benefits from GM Crops," meaning that farmers will have to spray more and more chemicals to less and less effect. Pesticide use is rising rapidly in biotech-heavy countries. In the heaviest user of biotech seeds -- the United States, which has half of all biotech seed planting -- glyphosate-resistant weeds are proliferating. Glyphosate use in the United States rose by 15 times from 1994 to 2005, according to "Who Benefits from GM Crops," and use of other and more toxic herbicides is rapidly rising. The U.S. experience likely foreshadows what is to come for other countries more recently adopting biotech crops.

Seed diversity is dropping, as Monsanto and its allies aim to eliminate seed saving, and development of new crop varieties is slowing. Contamination from neighboring fields using genetically modified seeds can destroy farmers' ability to maintain biotech-free crops. Reliance on a narrow range of seed varieties makes the food system very vulnerable, especially because of the visible problems with the biotech seeds now in such widespread use.

For all the uncertainties about the long-term effects of biotech crops and food, one might imagine that there were huge, identifiable short-term benefits. But one would be wrong.

Instead, a narrowly based industry has managed to impose a risky technology with short-term negatives and potentially dramatic downsides.

But while it is true, as ISAAA happily reports, that biotech planting is rapidly growing, it remains heavily concentrated in just a few countries: the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India and China.

Europe and most of the developing world continue to resist Monsanto's seed imperialism. The industry and its allies decry this stand as a senseless response to fear-mongering. It actually reflects a rational assessment of demonstrated costs and benefits -- and an appreciation for real but incalculable risks of toying with the very nature of nature.