2-Plants: US Department of Agriculture licensed Terminator technology to industry partner

[GENET <genetnl@xs4all.be>]

-----------------------
genet-news mailing list
-----------------------

-------------------------------- GENET-news --------------------------------

TITLE:  USDA Says Yes to Terminator
SOURCE: RAFI - Rural Advancement Foundation International, News Release
        www.rafi.org | rafi@rafi.org
DATE:   August 3, 2001

------------------ archive: http://www.gene.ch/genet.html ------------------


USDA Says Yes to Terminator

It's official. The US Department of Agriculture announced this week that it 
has concluded negotiations to license the notorious Terminator technology 
to its seed industry partner, Delta & Pine Land (D&PL). As a result of 
joint research, the USDA and D&PL are co-owners of three patents on the 
controversial technology that genetically modifies plants to produce 
sterile seeds, preventing farmers from re-using harvested seed. A licensing 
agreement establishes the terms and conditions under which a party can use 
a patented technology. Although many of the Gene Giants hold patents on 
Terminator technology, D&PL is the only company that has publicly declared 
its intention to commercialize Terminator seeds. (for details, see "2001: A 
Seed Odyssey" RAFI Communique, January/February 2001, www.rafi.org)

"USDA's decision to license Terminator flies in the face of international 
public opinion and betrays the public trust," said Hope Shand, Research 
Director of RAFI. "Terminator technology has been universally condemned by 
civil society; banned by international agricultural research institutes, 
censured by United Nations bodies, even shunned by Monsanto, and yet the US 
government has officially sanctioned commercialization of the technology by 
licensing it to one of the world's largest seed companies," explains Shand.

"USDA's role in developing Terminator seeds is a disgraceful example of 
corporate welfare involving a technology that is bad for farmers, dangerous 
for the environment and disastrous for world food security," adds Silvia 
Ribeiro of RAFI. Terminator has been universally opposed as an immoral 
technology because over 1.4 billion people, primarily poor farmers, depend 
on farm-saved seeds as their primary seed source.

Michael Schechtman, Executive Secretary to USDA's Advisory Committee on 
Agricultural Biotechnology, made the official announcement regarding the 
licensing of Terminator at the Committee's August 1 meeting. The 38-member 
Advisory Committee, established during the Clinton administration, was 
created to advise the Secretary of Agriculture on issues related to growing 
public controversy over GM technology. Because of overwhelming public 
opposition to USDA's involvement with Terminator, the issue became a top 
priority for the Advisory Committee. USDA officials admitted last year that 
the Agency had the option of abandoning patents on Terminator, but chose 
not to do so. Although many members of the Biotech Advisory Committee urged 
the USDA to abandon its patents and forsake all further research on genetic 
seed sterilization, the USDA steadfastly declined. The official statement 
released by USDA this week states that the Agency "had a legal obligation" 
to license the technology to D&PL.

In a lackluster attempt to quell its critics, the USDA pledged to negotiate 
licensing restrictions on how the Terminator technology could be deployed 
by Delta & Pine Land. "In the end, the restrictions negotiated by USDA are 
meaningless," concludes Michael Sligh, RAFI-USA's Director of Sustainable 
Agriculture, and member of the Biotech Advisory Committee. According to 
Sligh, "USDA's promotion of Terminator technology puts private profits 
above public good and the rights of farmers everywhere." Sligh spearheaded 
efforts amongst Advisory Board members who urged the USDA to abandon 
Terminator.

USDA places the following conditions on D&PL's deployment of Terminator:

- The licensed Terminator technology will not be used in any heirloom 
varieties of garden flowers and vegetables and it will not be used in any 
variety of plant available in the marketplace before January 1, 2003.
(RAFI's comment: In other words, Terminator will not be commercialized, at 
the earliest, until 2003 - only 17 months from now. To suggest that USDA is 
protecting heirloom varieties from genetic seed sterilization technology is 
ludicrous. There's no money to be made on genetic modification of heirloom 
vegetables and flowers. The seed industry aims to engineer seed sterility 
in major crop commodities - especially those crops that have not been 
successfully hybridized on a commercial scale such as soybeans, rice and 
wheat.)

- USDA scientists will be involved in safety testing of new varieties 
incorporating the GM trait for seed sterility, and a full and public 
process of safety evaluation must be completed prior to regulatory sign-off 
by USDA.
(RAFI's comment: Can USDA play a role in both developing and regulating 
this technology? Is it a blatant conflict of interest for the agency to 
conduct a biosafety review of a product in which it holds a financial 
interest?)

- All royalties accruing to USDA from the use of Terminator will be 
earmarked to technology transfer efforts for USDA's Agricultural Research 
Service innovations that will be made widely available to the public.
(RAFI's comment: "Technology transfer" is a very broad concept. Terminator 
seeds in every foreign aid package? More paper clips for ARS patent 
lawyers?)

USDA concludes that Terminator "is a valuable technology." Ironically, the 
agency promotes Terminator as a "green" technology that will prevent gene 
flow from transgenic plants.

"We reject the notion that Terminator is a biosafety bandage for GM crops 
with leaky genes, but even if it were, biosafety at the expense of food 
security is unacceptable," concludes RAFI's Silvia Ribeiro.

Last year the FAO's Panel of Eminent Experts on Ethics in Food and 
Agriculture concluded that Terminator seeds are unethical. When heads of 
state meet at FAO's World Food Summit Five Years Later in Rome, 9-15 
November, they will have the opportunity to re-affirm that finding, and 
recommend that member nations ban the technology. In keeping with its image 
as a rogue, isolationist state in international treaty negotiations on 
global warming and biological weapons, the US also appears to stand alone 
on Terminator.

********

Delta & Pine Land (Mississippi, USA) is the world's 9th largest seed 
corporation, with revenues of $301 million in 2000. The company has joint 
ventures and/or subsidiaries in North America, Brazil, Argentina, China, 
Mexico, Paraguay, South Africa, Australia, and China.

RAFI is an international civil society organization based in Canada. We are 
dedicated to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and to 
the socially responsible development of technologies useful to rural 
societies.

For further information on this news release: Hope Shand, RAFI: 
hope@rafi.org, 919 960-5223 Michael Sligh, RAFI-USA (member of USDA's Ag 
Biotech Advisory Committee),: msligh@rafiusa.org(919) 542-1396



--


|*********************************************|
|                   GENET                     |
| European NGO Network on Genetic Engineering |
|                                             |
|             Hartmut MEYER (Mr)              |
|               Kleine Wiese 6                |
|           D - 38116 Braunschweig            |
|                 Germany                     |
|                                             |
| phone: +49-531-5168746                      |
| fax:   +49-531-5168747                      |
| email: genetnl@xs4all.be                    |
|*********************************************|