New report warns of 'climate gene' biopiracy in Africa

Corporations and institutions are rushing to patent 'climate genes' that  can  withstand environmental stresses, with  some of these genes originating from crops grown in Africa, thus igniting fears of potential biopiracy of the continent's resources.

Chee Yoke Heong

Issue No. 231/232 (Nov/Dec 2009)

'SYNGENTA, Monsanto and others are positioning themselves to further penetrate African markets clutching the climate change banner,' a new report by the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has said. This involves appropriating key African food crops to produce genetically modified (GM) climate crops.

According to the report, 'Patents, Climate Change and African Agriculture: Dire Predictions', biotechnology is being used to identify 'climate genes' in African plants which can withstand stresses that are likely to become prevalent as the world's climate changes, and companies are patenting them to strengthen their hold on the seed market for GM crops.

Monsanto has obtained permits from the South African regulatory authority to conduct field trials on four events of its abiotic stress corn over a three-year period. (An 'event' refers to a particular modification of an organism.) The multinational corporation is also conducting studies on drought-tolerant soybean and cotton for commercialisation.

Together with strategic partners, Monsanto is in the forefront of patenting parts of key African food crops such as sorghum, maize, peanut, cotton, wheat, manioc, sugar cane and banana for their 'climate' properties including stress tolerance, biomass accumulation and drought tolerance.

An Israeli company, Evogene, partially owned by Monsanto, is claiming more than 700 climate-related gene sequences in a single patent application. The claim extends to the use of the gene sequences in key African crops such as maize, peanut, cotton, wheat, manioc as well as a number of economic plants such as ornamentals and teak species.

Another Monsanto ally, US-based Ceres Inc., which calls itself 'the energy crop company', has filed patents on numerous climate-related genes for both agrofuels and food crops of importance to Africa such as sorghum, maize, millets and rice.

Switzerland-based Syngenta, another multinational corporation, has also lined up climate-change-related patent claims on genes related to drought and agrofuels that have implications for Africa. Some of these patent claims include development of GM plants that are resistant to saline soil and drought.

In an earlier report  in 2008, the non-governmental ETC Group identified over 500 patent applications on climate genes around the world; since then, many new applications have been filed. Apart from focusing on specific crops, the patent claims also extend to genes and biotechnology techniques that could be used on a large variety of plants.

In pursuit of patents   

According to the ACB report, Africa is constantly under pressure to extend the patent rights of the multinational seed industry, which, together with its supporters as well as private funders, believes that mass adoption of genetically engineered 'climate-ready' crops is the answer to  dealing with the impact of climate change  on  African agriculture.

This is despite the fact that this 'solution' poses serious biosafety risks as well as a threat to the continent's food sovereignty, cautioned the ACB.

The activities of the multinational seed and agrochemical companies in African national markets are currently variable, depending on the country and its dominant crops. Their presence is currently felt more strongly in the temperate regions of Southern Africa where maize is grown on a large scale than in the central African rainforests.

According to the report, through pressure to expand their intellectual property rights over plants, these companies hope to strengthen their African presence in their search for greater profits.

The report also highlights the players behind the development of the 'climate-ready' crops and who seek to control them through patents. It noted that while large seed and agrochemical companies often forge research alliances among themselves or with smaller companies involved in 'gene recovery' relating to climate change crops, such alliances also extend into public sector plant breeding and research programmes through collaborative agreements often funded by multinationals and private philanthropy in the West.

Ceres, for example, has signed a deal for exclusive access to high biomass sorghum lines from Texas A&M University. Sorghum is a major African and Texan crop that is notable for its drought-tolerant quality and which recently has attracted renewed interest for grain, agrofuels and fodder production. For decades, the university had been a major source of publicly released sorghum breeding lines, but this public resource has now been endangered through Ceres' exclusive arrangement.

Another initiative that has come under critical review is the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Buffett Foundation, the project involves Monsanto, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), the African Agricultural Technology Foundation and the national agricultural research institutions of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa.

The project aims to develop and release conventional and genetically engineered drought-resistant maize varieties which its promoters say will be made available royalty-free to small farmers in Southern Africa. As such, the project is hailed as an example of corporate largesse and how biotechnology can supposedly solve climate change challenges. However, critics such as the ACB see it as a 'Trojan horse intended to hook African farmers on GM seeds'.

Few concrete examples

Of the hundreds of patent claims on climate genes, it is difficult to predict which, if any, will ultimately prove commercially valuable or useful in Africa, says the ACB report. Because most claims are so broad - applying to the use of the genes in almost any plant - at this stage of technological development, there are few concrete examples beyond attempts to introduce transgenic drought tolerance traits into the largest global crops such as maize and rice, all of which remain experimental to date.

The report argued that Africa should rise to the challenges posed by climate change by collectively responding to new conditions using traditional knowledge and in situ methods, supported by agricultural research and extension, to create the seeds and production systems necessary to cope with a rapidly changing environment.

Extending patent monopolies to large corporations will only undermine and stymie climate adaptation by African farmers because it will stifle the free exchange of and experimentation with crops, activities which are critical to the development of indigenous solutions, says the report.

As such, the ACB urges African governments to investigate the patent claims that have been filed, particularly those that resemble 'biopiracy' in asserting ownership to African genetic resources that would otherwise be commercialised elsewhere.           

This article is reproduced from the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS, No. 6787, 7 October 2009), which is published by the Third World Network.

*Third World Resurgence No. 231/232, November-December 2009, pp 39-40