Monsanto and terminator technology
Rural advocacy organizations learned today that Monsanto, arguably the world's least popular biotech multinational, held a high-level meeting yesterday to consider whether or not to abandon its quest for an exclusive license on the Terminator technology - US patent no. 5,723,765 - which its subsidiary, Delta & Pine Land Co., co-owns with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)* Terminator II: Trick or Treat?: The Terminator technology was developed jointly by the USDA and Delta and Pine Land Company, a Mississippi-based seed company. Two months after the patent was awarded to both parties, Monsanto offered to buy Delta and Pine Land for $1.8 billion. In late-September RAFI learned that the Monsanto subsidiary had entered into negotiations with USDA to obtain exclusive rights to the Terminator patent. In response, RAFI launched an international e-mail campaign that has resulted in more than 3500 letters of protest from 60 countries to US Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. The campaign calls on USDA to cease negotiations with Monsanto, abandon research on Terminator and withdraw patent applications on the technology that are pending in 87 foreign countries. Hope Shand offers another concern, "Monsanto has made itself the target but there is a similar patent granted to Zeneca BioSciences in the UK." That patent was dubbed the "Verminator" by RAFI because the seed sterility technique is promoted with a "fat rat" gene. "Every major life industry corporation hopes to develop its own version of suicide seeds in the coming years," explains Shand, "Engineering seed sterility is a logical goal for the multinational seed industry because around three-quarters of the world's farmers routinely save seed from their harvest for re-planting," says Shand. |