Speaking at an international conference on Biodiversity,
Biopiracy andPatents (1), being held in New Delhi, Eric Gall of
GreenpeaceInternational said: "Monsanto is once again trying to
control the foodwe grow. This is patenting life. This is abuse of
patent laws andit is an outright offence to farmers
world-wide."
Filed at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in
Geneva(2) the patent application stakes a claim on pig rights in
more than160 countries, including the UK, Germany, the US, Russia,
Brazil,Australia, China and India. If granted, US-based Monsanto
will be in aposition to prevent breeders and farmers from breeding
pigs withcertain characteristics or methods of breeding, or force
them to payroyalties. The patents cover methods of conventional
breeding and alsothe screening for naturally occurring genetic
conditions that can makepigs grow faster.
Monsanto wants to enter a growing market with an increasing
consumerdemand for meat products globally. The Monsanto patents
pretend tospeed up breeding for higher economical profit. The hitch
is that thesepigs and their descendants would all be patented - and
royalties wouldhave to be paid to Monsanto.
Monsanto is already infamous for its aggressive marketing of GM
cropssuch as GM soy and GM maize, as well as for its far-reaching
monopolieson all kind of seeds (3). Greenpeace wants Monsanto to
drop patentapplications on farm animals and seeds, and stop the
abuse of patentlaw, bio-piracy, animal patents and seed monopolies.
Greenpeace alsolaunched a cyberaction against Monsanto today.
"If this patent gets granted, Monsanto could control the
normalbreeding of pigs to a large extent, without any real
invention behindit. The experience farmers have with this company
so far (4) let themexpect a further shocking exercise of squeezing
royalties and suingfarmers on global scale," warned Gall. "This
patent application is soabsurd we wonder what Monsanto will come up
with next?"
Other contacts: Eric Gall, Greenpeace European Unit GMO policy adviser, mobile +91 98 116 82601 (in India)and +32 (0)496 161 582Christoph Then, GE campaigner, Greenpeace International, mobile +49 171 878 0832
Notes: 1) "EU - India Dialogue cum Strategy Session on Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights" conference between the European Union and India is held in New Delhi, India on the 1-2 August 2005.(2) Patent applications WO 2005/017204 and WO 2005/015989 were filed in February 2005 at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva. There are more than 160 countries mentioned where the patent should be granted, such as in Europe, Russian Federation, Asia (India, China, Philippines) America (USA, Brazil, Mexico), Australia and New Zealand. The WIPO itself can only receive applications, but does not grant any patents; it will forward the applications to regional patent offices in the US, Europe or elsewhere. At this stage the patent are not granted yet, but they could be accepted for example under European and US Regulation. For the full document see: http://www.wipo.int/cgi-pct/guest/ifetch5?ENG+PCT-ALL.vdb+14+1147748-SCORE+256+4+20872+BASICHTML-ENG+1+1+1+25+SEP-0/HITNUM,B,,SCORE+2005015989(3) The company has spent about 10 billions US $ over the last ten years to buy a large range of companies involved in seed and agricultural production. According to Greenpeace, such patents and monopolies lead to a decrease of biodiversity in agriculture, endanger global food security and put pressure on farmers' livelihoods worldwide. For more on patents at http://archive.greenpeace.org/geneng/reports/pat/intrpat.htm(4) The way Monsanto tries to control its genetically manipulated seeds such as herbicide resistant soybeans by taking farmers to court has already led to worldwide controversies and protests. Recently it was made public that Monsanto even tries to get additional royalties for harvests from Argentinean soybean farmers exported to Europe by filing court cases in Denmark, claiming the cargo of shipments was their intellectual property.Take Action against Monsanto at http://www.greenpeace.org/no-pig-patent.