The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : Beware of ‘gene giants,’ farmers told

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 04, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

Beware of ‘gene giants,’ farmers told

Special Correspondent

Bio-pirates on the prowl to secure patents on Pokkali: Vandana Shiva

Says they are eyeing the Pokkali rice variety‘Hundreds of patent applications awaiting nod‘

KOCHI: Environmental campaigner Vandana Shiva has cautioned farmers against attempts by multinational seed corporations to obtain patents on Kerala’s unique rice varieties such as Pokkali.

Dr. Shiva, who founded the Nava Danya and Bij Vidyapeeth (seed university) in Dehradun, said giant corporations were now claiming farmers’ collective and cumulative innovations over centuries as their own invention through bio-piracy patents. The latest in this bio-piracy was the patenting of climate-resilient traits of several rice varieties being used by Indian farmers over the centuries.

Dr. Shiva was speaking on ‘Food security and community health in the context of genetically modified (GM) foods’ at a seminar held at Kakkanad on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the Thrikkakara Grama Panchayat Cooperative Hospital, the first such hospital set up in Kerala under the People’s Plan Campaign.

She said a large number of rice varieties in the country were resilient to salinity, floods or droughts. For instance, the Pokkali rice—cultivated in the saline waters of the coastal areas of Ernakulam and Thrissur districts alternating with prawn farming— was salinity-resistant. A number of rice varieties in Kuttanad were flood-resilient.

She said the ‘gene giants,’ who stole farmers’ innovations of salt-resistant, flood-resistant and drought-resistant varieties worldwide, would be eyeing these varieties too. Hundreds of patent applications on climate-resilient genes were awaiting approval with global patenting agencies.

Dr. Shiva said food insecurity was a key threat facing the poor in India and the odd thing about it was that those who were producing food—the farmers in the villages—were the most affected.

This was because of the structural imbalances in the agricultural sector in terms of production, distribution and pricing.

Pat for GM-free Kerala

She said the multinational corporations such as Monsanto which were aggressively promoting GM seeds claimed that these seeds were an answer to food insecurity and farmers’ poverty. “If it is so, how come thousands of cotton farmers in Maharashtra, who cultivated bt.cotton, committed suicide due to heavy debts?” she wondered.

She praised the Kerala government for taking a principled stand against GM food by declaring Kerala to be a GM-free State in spite of the Centre’s pressure.

Organic farming, in which chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not used, would to a large extend solve food insecurity in the country, she said. However, the government was not keen on promoting it. When it gave around one-lakh crore of rupees in subsidy to the fertilizer industry last year, only Rs.500 crore was allocated for organic farming.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala

News Update

Stories in this Section