Biopiracy: Raiding Our Common Heritage

Suppose a corporation patented a recipe that had been handed down in your family for generations, and barred you from using it unless you paid a fee? Such a quandary faces farmers today, as new, "life patenting" trends in intellectual property law let corporations claim ownership of traditional crops.

For millennia, farmers have developed "recipes" for crops by saving and trading seeds and plants. "Plants historically were freely exchanged," says John Tuxill, a Worldwatch Institute research fellow and author of Nature's Cornucopia. Now, in a phenomenon known as biopiracy, corporations are patenting the fruits of this traditional knowledge. Ultimately, biopiracy may mean less varied, more expensive food for all of us.

For example, yellow beans have been a staple food of Mexico for many generations. In 1994, American businessman Larry Proctor purchased a bag of mixed-color commercial bean seeds in Mexico. He picked out yellow beans, cultivated them, and in 1999 his company, POD-NERS, won a patent on what Proctor calls the "Enola" bean. POD-NERS is now suing two Mexican companies that export yellow beans to the U.S. for patent infringement.

"In the beginning, I thought it was a joke," says Rebecca Gilliland, president of Tutuli Produce, one of the Mexican companies. "How could [Proctor] invent something that Mexicans have been growing for centuries?" Here's how: The World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) gives corporations the ability to patent such traditional crops, as well as medicinal plants and many other naturally occurring things.

"There are hundreds of thousands of farmers who grow yellow beans, and now their ability to sell the beans and make a living has been disrupted," says Hope Shand, research director of Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI). In addition, challenging the patent will cost the Mexican government an estimated $200,000.

The yellow bean is only one of 147 cases of suspected "biopiracy" cases identified by RAFI. Others include 2 chickpea varieties and the Mexican guaje tree. Vandana Shiva, author of Stolen Harvest, the Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, points out that the soybean, an East Asian plant, has been patented by Monsanto-owned Calgene, as has mustard, a crop of Indian origin. In 1997, RiceTec Inc., a Texas-based company, won a patent for basmati rice, threatening India's $425 million in yearly basmati exports. India is challenging the patent.

A lot of grief could be avoided, says Worldwatch's John Tuxill, if the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office were more vigilant. "In my mind, regulators aren't doing their homework to find out if a patent claim is truly something new and unique," he says. Under these criteria, Proctor's Enola bean patent should have been rejected, Tuxill believes. He also sees a larger problem, in that we are shifting away from freely shared knowledge about plants and seeds to a proprietary system. "We are losing something very valuable in moving away from this system of common heritage," he warns.

Beyond harming farmers and developing nations economically, life patenting stifles the free exchange of ideas that has given us such a rich variety of foods. "Rather than stimulating research, which is what the patent system is supposed to do, it is hindering innovation because researchers are competing rather than sharing information," says Kristin Dawkins, vice president for international programs at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).

Some specialists in copyright law advocate property rights that would let native peoples claim royalties when companies use their traditional knowledge and indigenous plants. A case in point is Madagascar's rosy periwinkle, a forest plant used in a drug to treat testicular cancer and childhood leukemia. Eli Lilly gets $100 million a year, but Madagascar gets nothing. Native peoples and developing nations are beginning to protect their rights by establishing proof of origin.

Impacts on Consumers

By taking traditional crops and natural medicines and patenting them as new and unique products, companies are able to limit access to these goods and raise prices for consumers, says Patrick Woodall, spokesperson for Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "The World Trade Organization is about protecting rights of corporations at the expense of the consumers, traditional producers, and public safety as a whole," Woodall says. Patented, but inadequately tested for safety, genetically engineered crops being pushed on farmers could potentially harm the healthiness of the food supply, adds Dawkins. As Vandana Shiva says, "We have to reclaim our right to nutrition and food safety. We have to reclaim our right to protect the earth and her diverse species." See below for tips on how you can start.

Becky Gillette is a freelance environmental writer.