Seed Sovereignty | Gone to their heads, outa their minds!

EU No Patents protest. Munich. Photo credit: No Patents on Seed!

Monsanto wants patent

on severed
broccoli heads

NO PATENTS
CAMPAIGN IN EU OPPOSED

TO OWNERSHIP OF NON-GMO SEEDS

Devon G.
Peña | Shoreline, WA | March 10, 2014

The No
Patents on Seeds Campaign is reporting out of Munich (12.3.2014) that there
is very strong and broad opposition against the European patent EP 1597965
granted to Monsanto-owned Seminis, Inc.  Capitalist copycats seem to always want to imagine
that they have invented things that exist that are actually by-products of the creativity of farmers
and plant breeders. The target this time is a variation of the broccoli plant,
derived from conventional breeding, and seen by the Gene Giant as an invention
because “it grows in such a way as to allow mechanical harvesting.”

The No Patents on Seeds organization states that, if
granted, “…the patent covers the plants, the seeds, and the ‘severed broccoli
head’ as an invention” and also “covers a ‘plurality of broccoli plants grown
in a field of broccoli.’” This is rather bizarre, unsettling and vague language
games for a patent application, even by the looser European standards.

Led by Greenpeace, GeneWatch, Swissaid, Red de
Semillas and Navdanyah, more than a dozen EU and global civil society
organizations registered their opposition to the patent by submitting more than
75,000 signatures in protest. There were street protests in front of the
European Patent Office (EPO) building in Munich including a gathering of street
performance ‘artivists’ who formed the world’s largest ‘Free Broccoli’.

Christoph Then, speaking for the coalition of No Patents
On Seeds explains that, “Our opposition sends a clear signal that we will not
let our food be monopolized…In granting such patents, the EPO is breaking the
law. We now need joint action from civil society and politics to stop this.”

Those of us on this side of the fish pond have been
down this route before with patents on conventionally-bred plant varieties. A
not so distant and nortorious example was the Enola Bean patent in the 1990s,
what amounted to the theft of a Mexican scarlet runner bean variety that was
bred for many different qualities expressed in diverse shapes, length,
thickness, color, and taste. A Texas corporation by the name of Pod-Ners
attempt to establish a bio-pirated ownership claim on the variety declaring
that they had invested money in the selection of a specific size and color and
that this constituted an invention. Horticultural varieties are no “inventions,”
they are variations of an existing plant that may have many different gene
streams that intersect and diverge over time.

That case was resolved in 2008 in favor of the
Mexican farmers who actually developed the diverse set of native Mesoamerican
Vavilov Zone cultivars in the Phaseolus
vulgarus land race groups. That patent was deemed to have been erroneously
granted protection in 1999 as US
Patent Number 5,894,079. The U.S.-based opponents of that patent were led
by Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI, now ETC Group) and other
civil society organizations and were joined by the International Center for
Tropical Agriculture (known by its Spanish acronym, CIAT), a scientific
organization associated with the Consultative Groups on International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The objection was largely based on evidence of
the land race varieties and “the potential abuse of intellectual property (IP)
claims on plant materials that originate in the developing world and remain as
important dietary staples, particularly among the poor.”

Severed broccoli heads. Photo by Julio Godoy.

The EU conflict appears to be the result of the EPO willfully
ignoring a May 2012 resolution adopted by the European Parliament, which “calls
on the EPO to exclude from patenting products derived from conventional
breeding and all conventional breeding methods.” No Patents campaign organizers
note that the Administrative Council of the EPO could make the “political
decision to stop these patents.” The German government has already announced a
European initiative. In January 2014, the French Senate asked the government of
France to become actively involved.

A March 3, 2014 press release from the campaign
announces:

The international coalition of
No Patents on Seeds! includes: Bionext (Netherlands), The Berne Declaration
(Switzerland), GeneWatch (UK), Greenpeace, Misereor (Germany), Development Fund
(Norway), No Patents on Life (Germany), Red de Semillas (Spain), Rete Semi
Rurali (Italy), Reseau Semences Paysannes (France) and Swissaid (Switzerland).
The organisations behind the No Patents on Seeds! coalition are extremely
concerned that such patents will foster further market concentration, making
farmers and other stakeholders of the food supply chain even more dependent on just
a few big international companies and ultimately reduce consumer choice. No
Patents on Seeds! is calling for a revision of European Patent Law to exclude
breeding material, plants and animals and food derived thereof from patentability.
The coalition is supported by several hundred other organisations.

Contact/more information:

Christoph Then, Tel 0049 151 54638040, info@no-patents-on-seeds.org.