Trouble in the rice bowl

The multinational Syngenta Corporation has been in the news on several counts recently. First, there was outcry over its membership to the Consultative Group on International Research announced in the Philippines in October 2002 (see Seedling, January 2003, p 25). The second was over its negotiation of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Raipur, in the central Indian State of Chhatisgarh. If the deal had gone through the resulting collaborative “research” agreement between the two would have entailed the transfer of all the rice germplasm collections from the university to the company laboratories. Syngenta would have marketed new rice varieties developed under the collaboration upon payment of royalties to the university. The official collection of the university comprises about 24,000 accessions (rice samples), out of which 19,000 comprise traditional varieties, which was collected together in the 1970s by the efforts of the famed rice scientist Dr RH Richharia while he was director of the Madhya Pradesh Rice Research Institute. The rice was originally collected with farmers' consent as part of Richharia's “adaptive rice research” endeavour, to improve the varieties as per local requirements and redistribute them amongst farmers.

News of the deal, leaked through a local daily in Raipur in November 2002, sparked off peoples' protests in Chhatisgarh. Local groups were quick to respond and were able to mobilise public opinion against the deal. The local protests got the immediate support from others around the globe fighting biopiracy and the corporate takeover of agricultural research. The voice of dissent within the University walls was muffled at first, but soon became too loud to ignore. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research pressured the university to pull out and Syngenta had to drop the deal.
Nevertheless, farmers in the region feel violated. Their cry is: hands off, rice is not private property! Enraged by the betrayal of the state, some are campaigning for the repatriation of farmer varieties from all public sector research centres. Meanwhile others think that overhauling the present system can be achieved through Richharia's vision of decentralized, farmer-centred research. Their demand to the government is the reorientation of agricultural research to keep it “alive” and in the fields, not distanced from farmers. They emphasise that conservation of knowledge and diversity of the local agroecology cannot be achieved with the exclusion of the local people and that transnational corporations cannot be allowed to misappropriate people's wisdom and resources. Many have called for a ban on Syngenta being allowed into the State.

In the light of this episode, an important question being asked is whether a new Indian law would have safeguarded against the attempted biopiracy. The Indian Biological Diversity Act was cleared by both Houses of the Indian Parliament in December 2002. At a closer look, it seems that the law would have been unlikely to be able to help in this instance. The law mandates that “collaborative research projects” especially those involving transfer or exchange of biological resources or information must have “clearance by the Secretary of the concerned Ministry/Department or a High Level Committee of the Government of India”. In the proposed agreement with Syngenta no such approval was obtained. If the deal had gone through the approval procedure, at least information about the deal would be made public and open up channels for it to be challenged.

But had the transfer of germplasm already been executed, its recovery would still be very tricky, because the legislation says nothing about what course of action should be taken to repatriate germplasm. More significantly, approval from the National Biodiversity Authority (which was set up under the Biodiversity Act) would not be applicable for intellectual property right issues in relation to plant varieties. For that the legislation points to India's Plant Variety Protection & Farmers' Rights Act instead.

This Act, passed in 2001, allows foreign corporate breeders to register their plant varieties in India. Despite an entire Chapter on Farmers Rights, the rights of farmers described are no more than a ‘new variety' of farmer's privilege and a derogation of corporate breeding rights. The Act does not have provisions to safeguard against situations in which traditional crop varieties are taken out of the country. Because of these shortfalls in legislation, there is growing opinion that domestic law and policy on plant genetic resources is inadequate. It remains to be seen whether or not the implementing rules to be drafted under these laws can plug some of the loopholes.

The multinational Syngenta Corporation has been in the news on several counts recently. First, there was outcry over its membership to the Consultative Group on International Research announced in the Philippines in October 2002 (see Seedling, January 2003, p 25). The second was over its negotiation of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Raipur, in the central Indian State of Chhatisgarh. If the deal had gone through the resulting collaborative “research” agreement between the two would have entailed the transfer of all the rice germplasm collections from the university to the company laboratories. Syngenta would have marketed new rice varieties developed under the collaboration upon payment of royalties to the university. The official collection of the university comprises about 24,000 accessions (rice samples), out of which 19,000 comprise traditional varieties, which was collected together in the 1970s by the efforts of the famed rice scientist Dr RH Richharia while he was director of the Madhya Pradesh Rice Research Institute. The rice was originally collected with farmers' consent as part of Richharia's “adaptive rice research” endeavour, to improve the varieties as per local requirements and redistribute them amongst farmers.

News of the deal, leaked through a local daily in Raipur in November 2002, sparked off peoples' protests in Chhatisgarh. Local groups were quick to respond and were able to mobilise public opinion against the deal. The local protests got the immediate support from others around the globe fighting biopiracy and the corporate takeover of agricultural research. The voice of dissent within the University walls was muffled at first, but soon became too loud to ignore. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research pressured the university to pull out and Syngenta had to drop the deal.
Nevertheless, farmers in the region feel violated. Their cry is: hands off, rice is not private property! Enraged by the betrayal of the state, some are campaigning for the repatriation of farmer varieties from all public sector research centres. Meanwhile others think that overhauling the present system can be achieved through Richharia's vision of decentralized, farmer-centred research. Their demand to the government is the reorientation of agricultural research to keep it “alive” and in the fields, not distanced from farmers. They emphasise that conservation of knowledge and diversity of the local agroecology cannot be achieved with the exclusion of the local people and that transnational corporations cannot be allowed to misappropriate people's wisdom and resources. Many have called for a ban on Syngenta being allowed into the State.

In the light of this episode, an important question being asked is whether a new Indian law would have safeguarded against the attempted biopiracy. The Indian Biological Diversity Act was cleared by both Houses of the Indian Parliament in December 2002. At a closer look, it seems that the law would have been unlikely to be able to help in this instance. The law mandates that “collaborative research projects” especially those involving transfer or exchange of biological resources or information must have “clearance by the Secretary of the concerned Ministry/Department or a High Level Committee of the Government of India”. In the proposed agreement with Syngenta no such approval was obtained. If the deal had gone through the approval procedure, at least information about the deal would be made public and open up channels for it to be challenged.

But had the transfer of germplasm already been executed, its recovery would still be very tricky, because the legislation says nothing about what course of action should be taken to repatriate germplasm. More significantly, approval from the National Biodiversity Authority (which was set up under the Biodiversity Act) would not be applicable for intellectual property right issues in relation to plant varieties. For that the legislation points to India's Plant Variety Protection & Farmers' Rights Act instead.

This Act, passed in 2001, allows foreign corporate breeders to register their plant varieties in India. Despite an entire Chapter on Farmers Rights, the rights of farmers described are no more than a ‘new variety' of farmer's privilege and a derogation of corporate breeding rights. The Act does not have provisions to safeguard against situations in which traditional crop varieties are taken out of the country. Because of these shortfalls in legislation, there is growing opinion that domestic law and policy on plant genetic resources is inadequate. It remains to be seen whether or not the implementing rules to be drafted under these laws can plug some of the loopholes.

Reference for this article: GRAIN, 2003, Trouble in the rice bowl , Seedling, April 2003, GRAIN

Website link: www.grain.org/seedling/seed-03-04-6-en.cfm

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