Purdue defends Terminator

Farm News from Cropchoice
An alternative news service for American farmers
http://www.cropchoice.com

4/30/02
Transforming public research into exclusive rights: Purdue defends
Terminator
By David Dechant

(April 30, 2002 -- CropChoice guest commentary) -- It's easy to understand
why a private business would want total monopoly control over seed. But it's
hard to understand why public research institutions would want the same
or why they would even assist business in doing so. By definition, the
term "public research" contradicts "exclusive rights." Nonetheless, our
public research institutions are very much interested in obtaining
exclusive rights, not only for themselves but also for their corporate
"partners."

Last week's Purdue press release, "Terminator Tussle: Controversial
Technology Needed, Experts Say,"
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?RecID=685) illustrates this.

Therein, Purdue University bioethicist Paul Thompson says much of the
opposition to plant sterilization technology is misplaced fury. Purdue
animal science professor William Muir and biology professor Rick Howard
further defend the Terminator, saying that it will be of great benefit in
reducing the hazard of uncontrolled spread of genetically modified animals
and plants. And, last but not least, Marshall Martin, the associate
director of Agricultural Research Programs at Purdue, defends the
Terminator by saying that most farmers in the US and other industrialized
countries don't save seed.

Something is very much wrong. Even the most vilified biotech/seed company
in the business, Monsanto, disavowed the Terminator. The public generally
holds its research institutions in high esteem, and it is very sad indeed
when they can't even rise a step above the company Indian farmers burned
an effigy of when they heard of its plans to commercialize the Terminator.

For Mr. Thompson's information, Daniel Charles, author of "Lords of the
Harvest," credits RAFI, now known as the ETC Group, with giving the
Terminator its name. The ETC Group is not anti-biotechnology. It is,
however, the seed saving farmers' friend, as it tirelessly fights the
monopolization of genetic resources. It is also a good name giver. Could
anyone have thought of a more appropriate name for Sterile Seed
Technology, a.k.a. Technology Protection System, a.k.a. Control of Plant
Gene Expression?

The fury over this technology is not misplaced; it is right on target.
This technology that the USDA and Land Grant Universities shamelessly
helped create not only terminates an organism's lineal descent, it also
terminates farmers' historical and natural rights. It is also a sneaky way
of bypassing national and international laws which do not allow seed
companies to contractually prohibit seed saving by biologically
prohibiting it instead. It also is means of patent extension, as the
Terminator won't expire as patents do.

As for Professor Muir's and Professor Howard's concerns of uncontrolled
gene flow and spread of GMOs, aren't there other alternatives of doing the
same? Through apomixis, some plants can reproduce seed asexually. One
biology Professor who obviously understands he is working for the public,
Dr. Stephen L. Goldman at the University of Toledo, works to create
apomictic corn. He has been quoted as saying, "It's the challenger to the
terminator technology." Perhaps if apomixis can be combined with male
sterility, then at least the flow of pollen can be controlled.

Putting transgenes into DNA that is only maternally inherited could be
another means of preventing unwanted pollen flow. In any case, the
Terminator is more about taking away farmers' right and ability to save
seed than it is about protecting the environment. If not, then why don't
its supporters put the means of controlling fertility in farmers' hands?

Terminator promoters don't want to because they desperately want to force
an expansion of the seed market, especially abroad where they cannot
contractually prohibit farmers from saving seed. Though the US government
and the multinational Biotech companies have been trying very hard at the
WTO and other international forums to get the rest of the world to take
away farmers' rights, they haven't had much luck in doing so.

Even in the European Union, Community law allows farmers to save seed.
Consequently, Marshall Martin's comments that most farmers in the US and
industrialized countries don't save seed are way off base. Otherwise,
Monsanto never would have prosecuted hundreds of farmers in the US and a
like number in Canada. Otherwise, the EU never would have included a seed
saving provision in its laws. Otherwise, this article's author, a wheat
farmer, wouldn't be writing. Wheat farmers commonly save seed, and so did
soybean farmers, at least until the Monsanto Mafia came along.

Purdue's support of the Terminator is a symptom of a much bigger problem:
the corporate takeover of our public research institutions. Federal and
state governments have abdicated their responsibility to adequately fund
our public research institutions by putting the fox in the henhouse.
Research institutions now see selling exclusive rights to patents and
"partnering" with corporations as a way of getting much needed funds.
Industry has not only eliminated the public sector as a competitor; it has
appropriated its resources, too.

Of course, seed research takes a lot of money. But when it costs farmers
their historical, natural rights, and tears the social fabric of rural
America because neighbors are encouraged to rat out seed saving neighbors,
then it is too expensive. Meanwhile, farmers look towards their Land Grant
Universities as the only thing between them and a total corporate takeover
of the seed supply, and it disturbs them to see that their Land Grants are
being taken over, too.

Public seed research needs to be directed back into producing seed that
farmers can save for crops that consumers demand. Farmers and consumers
need to convince legislators to provide more public funding for such
research. Perhaps there is one other means of funding: let's put a tax or
an assessment on all privately owned patented seed and direct the money
towards farmer and consumer friendly public seed research.

The Terminator and closely related Traitor technologies might also put the
world's food supply at risk. For example, DuPont/Pioneer didn't have
enough quality soybean seed to provide its customers for 2001 spring
planting. Due to hot, dry weather, a lot of seed grown in 2000 didn't meet
quality standards. No problem, Pioneer pulled soybean seed out of farmers'
bins, even if it wasn't grown under a seed contract with the purpose of
producing seed. As long as farmers could verify that it was all of a given
variety and met seed quality standards, Pioneer bought it and bagged it
up. (Ironically, farmers couldn't legally plant the very same seed out of
their own bins.)

So what would Pioneer have done if farmers had nothing but sterile seed in
their bins?

In another case, US corn production fell sharply in 1970 due to Southern
Corn Leaf Blight. Most hybrids of the day were produced from a parent line
with Texas Male Cytoplasmic Sterility, and hybrids produced from it weren'
t resistant to the blight. By the time that everyone knew that they needed
to plant resistant varieties for the next year, it was already too late to
produce enough seed in the US cornbelt. Frantically, seed companies rushed
to grow an interim winter crop anywhere they could. Since corn seed grown
from hybrids doesn't produce very well, farmers who had corn varieties
with resistance couldn't pull seed out of their bins.

Last, is Purdue's real motivation for promoting the Terminator gene that
it wants to profit by selling exclusive rights to the patent of its
version, patent no. WO9911807? Or do Purdue researchers need to take
remedial English, as many incoming freshmen do, to figure out that the
word "public" implies inclusivity? Or maybe Purdue wants to please its
industry partners?

Again, if Sterile Seed Technology, a.k.a. the notorious Terminator, is
absolutely necessary, then put the means of controlling fertility and
reproducing productive seed in farmers' hands!

About the author: David Dechant grows corn, wheat and alfalfa in Colorado.

Editor's note: Readers can find the Purdue article to which David refers
in his piece at Terminator tussle: Controversial technology needed, some
experts say; http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?RecID=685