Dead-end seeds yield a harvest of revolt

UNESCO Courier, June, 1999 by Ethirajan Anbarasan

Farmers in developing countries are up in arms against a new technique to produce sterile seeds. Scientists, however, warn that blind opposition to biotech research will do more harm than good

It was a dream come true for seed companies. Spurred by the ongoing biotechnology revolution, scientists have developed an innovative technique enabling companies to produce genetically altered seeds that do not germinate once fully grown. The result: farmers who opt for these seeds will have to buy them each time they plant a new crop, opening a potential gold mine for the seed companies.

The technique, known as the "Technology Protection System" (TPS), was jointly patented by the Delta and Pine Land (DPL) seed company and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in March 1998. Seeds incorporating this technique are expected to be commercialized by 2005. While the innovation is welcomed by seed manufacturers, farmers in many developing countries have been conducting campaigns and staging protests - sometimes turning to violence - against the TPS, fearing the new technique could be detrimental to their interests.

At present, except for some hybrid crops like cotton and canola, farmers do not usually buy seeds for self-pollinating plants like wheat and rice. Farmers in the developing world consider it their "right" to save or exchange seeds, a practice that has been followed for more than 10,000 years.

According to the UN, more than 1.4 billion people, mainly resource-poor farmers, depend on farm-saved seeds and seeds exchanged with their neighbours as their primary seed source. Critics say that sterile seeds are a serious threat to this group of farmers, asserting that the innovation will further impoverish them.

"The introduction of any technology that prevents farmers from keeping their own seeds is not desirable. Farmers' rights include 'plant back' rights. The TPS will certainly prevent this right," says Dr M. S. Swaminathan, an eminent scientist who played a leading role in India's Green Revolution.

In India, where 90 per cent of the 100 million farmers depend on saved seeds, farm lobby groups are vehemently opposed to this new technology entering local seed markets. In the southern Indian state of Karnataka, experimental plots of genetically engineered crops belonging to Monsanto, one of the world's leading seed companies, were ransacked by a group of farmers last year in the mistaken belief that they contained the new sterile seed technology. Actually, the test site was for a pest-resistant hybrid cotton seed which had nothing to do with TPS.The public outcry forced the government to declare that it would not allow the technology to enter India.

Opposition to TPS has been gaining pace in other parts of the developing world where seed saving is an age-old custom. In a statement to a conference held by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in 1998, delegates from 20 African countries said the new technique poses a serious threat to food security, affirming "it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems of African farmers."

Scientifically, the TPS is considered a milestone in biotechnology research. The new method produces plants that bear sterile seeds through an interplay between three transplanted genes, one of which produces a toxin that kills seeds in their final stages of development. Critics however refer to it as "terminator technology" because of the technique's ability to neutralize a plant's germinating capacity - a characteristic introduced for purely commercial reasons.

"The new technique is to protect U.S. technology and seed patents," explains Melvin Oliver, one of the USDA scientists who invented the technology. The TPS is now being tested on tobacco and cotton seeds which are expected to enter the market by 2005.

When news of the terminator patent broke, it sparked a multi-media debate, especially on the Internet, concerning the ethics and social relevance of introducing the TPS in developing countries. The USDA received hundreds of e-mail letters from around the world questioning the validity of the new method.

Taken aback by the anti-sterile technology campaign, Monsanto seed corporation, which is in the process of acquiring DPL, announced in April this year that it will not commercialize the TPS until an independent international review of its environmental, economic and social effects is completed.

In defending the TPS, seed companies underline that it costs them between $30 and $100 million to develop a high-yielding genetically engineered seed variety. The present system of seed saving, which is prevalent in most developing countries, makes it difficult for them to gain sufficient returns on their investment. Losses have even forced some companies to suspend crop development programmes.

The threat to biodiversity

But a number of farming experts and organizations reject this logic. "I do not consider that the cost spent by seed companies can be recovered only by terminator technology. In fact, most successful seed companies are those whose seeds have a reputation for quality and affordable price," says Swaminathan.