Rome/Hamburg,
25 June 2001: Greenpeace research presented today
in Italy shows how multinational companies like agrochemical
giant DuPont are abusing patent laws for exclusive rights
over crop biological diversity.
Greenpeace
has issued a legal challenge to a DuPont patent with
support from other Latin American organisations and
the Mexican government.
The
research, revealed at the opening session of the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Conference
in Rome, Italy shows how multinational companies are
trying to gain worldwide control over seed, food and
feed through renewed lobby efforts.
The
International Undertaking conference is trying to set
global rules for conservation of biological diversity
in crop plants and access to food production and seeds.
One
of the most critical issues at stake is the patentability
of genes, plants and seeds.
“Companies
like Dupont are systematically claiming property rights
on both genes which are not inventions, and also on
conventionally bred plants. Such abuses clearly are
acts of biopiracy, and many developing countries see
it as the theft of their genetic resources by private
companies based in the rich developed world, where their
sole motivation is profit, ” said Christoph Then, Greenpeace
expert on patents.
Increasingly,
multinationals are taking genetic resources out of the
public domain, and claim them as their private property
through patent protection. Greenpeace is demanding that
seeds, plants and gene sequences, in particular for
crop plants should not be patented.
The
International Undertaking conference starting today
should be seen to send a clear message and become a
strong international framework to stop those patents.
“Living
organisms and their genes should not be subjected to
exclusive intellectual property rights such as patents,
and a small group of countries and their multinational
agriculture and biotechnology industries must not be
allowed to turn biological diversity into private property
and the pursuit of profit,” added Then.
“If
this trend is not stopped, we will soon be facing the
erosion of agricultural biodiversity, decreased food
security, and loss of farmers’ livelihoods and rights,”
he added.
With
seven other international Non Government Organisations,
Greenpeace demands the following: -
