USDA Says Yes to the Terminator Technology
RAFI
Rural Advancement Foundation International
www.rafi.org | rafi@rafi.org

News Release - 3 August 2001
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