With 140 patents on new GMOs, multinationals are at the forefront of privatising European agriculture at the expense of food quality and farmers’ rights.
A new report by Centro Internazionale Crocevia reveals that Bayer-Monsanto, Corteva, BASF and Syngenta have already filed 139 patents in the EU and are waiting for the deregulation of new GMOs to colonise European agriculture.
The world’s four largest agrochemical and seed companies – Corteva, Bayer-Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta – are already in pole position to take advantage of the forthcoming European deregulation of new GMOs. The EU Commission’s proposal to exempt new genomic techniques from labelling, traceability and risk assessment is expected today, but the Big4 have already applied for 139 patents on applications of new biotechnology to edit the genomes of plants in order to gain exclusive ownership of genetically modified plant varieties for 20 years and resell them to farmers.
The data is collected in a new report published today by the International Crossroads Centre, an NGO that has been supporting peasant movements around the world for more than thirty years. The dossier, entitled ‘Private Life – How patents on new GMOs threaten biodiversity and farmers’ rights’, reveals the number and beneficiaries of industrial patents on New Genomic Techniques (NGT) filed in the EU.
Presented as innovative techniques capable of targeted and precise genome modification, NGTs are also promoted as being able to produce drought- and pathogen-resistant crop varieties. In reality, says Crossroads, they repeat the risks and illusions that have accompanied the first generation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for the past thirty years.
The European Commission, ignoring the protests of citizens, farmers’ organisations, environmentalists and organic farmers, has today scheduled a proposal for a separate regulation of NGT products, bypassing the risk assessment, traceability and labelling requirements of the GMO Directive.
This path is dangerous for farmers and farmers’ seeds, as well as for the environment and consumers,’ explains Stefano Mori, coordinator of the International Crossroads Centre. Covered by industrial patents, NGTs and their derived products could accelerate the already worrying concentration of the seed market and contaminate uncultivated fields with biotech varieties, leading to a real misappropriation of farmers’ biodiversity and undermining the survival of organic farming.
An analysis of all the patents filed in the last twenty years on genome editing techniques allows Crocevia to argue that NGT is a lucrative business for the few, to the detriment of agricultural biodiversity and the rights of farmers to conserve, reuse, exchange and sell their seeds. The European Union and Italy are therefore in danger of putting an end to the precautionary principle after more than two decades in favour of a handful of multinational companies. No patents are in the hands of Italian companies or research centres and, despite the rhetoric of the government, trade organisations and CREA (the research centre of the Ministry of Food Sovereignty), our country is preparing to play the role of “useful idiot” for the benefit of much larger interests.
All biodiversity becomes patentable
In the European Union, commercial varieties obtained without genetic manipulation can at most be covered by plant variety rights, a form of intellectual property protection that allows third parties access to genetic material for the purpose of breeding new varieties. Instead, the abolition of NGTs will trigger a transition to the American model, based on the industrial patent, which is even more restrictive because it can only be accessed with the consent of the inventor. Not only that, but the abolition of traceability and the publication of laboratory-derived genetic modifications will make it possible to extend the application of patents to all plants, whether indigenous or the result of farmers’ or traditional selection, that contain traits and express functions of interest to biotechnologists. If the link between this genetic information and its functions has not been officially published, companies will be able to pretend that they have done so with the new biotechnologies and patent native plant traits. No one will be able to challenge this because they will lack the evidence and the tools to search for it.
This scenario has whetted the appetite of multinationals and the world’s leading research centres. The European Patent Office (EPO) has already received 970 applications for NGTs, of which 510 have been granted and 460 are pending. In addition to the Big 4, the majority of patents are held by Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Broad Institute and Sangamo Biosciences. However, each of these research centres and biotech companies has one or more exclusive licensing agreements with the Big 4 agribusiness corporations for the use of new genomic techniques.
Instead of working in the public interest, science today is often at the service of industry. This toxic nexus allows Bayer-Monsanto, Corteva, BASF and Syngenta to directly and indirectly control the research and development, production and distribution of the new GMOs. By deregulating, the EU and Italy are selling out the future of our agriculture to these actors. How this can have anything to do with sustainability is beyond comprehension.
Licensing platforms, the new frontier
To organise the European distribution of patented NGT plants, seeds and traits, the four giants created the Agricultural Crop Licensing Platform (ACLP) in March 2023, a licensing platform that will enable the oligopolistic supply of NGT processes and products. The founding members of the platform are Limagrain, KWS, BNA, HZPC and Elsoms Ackermann Barley. Together, these companies hold a total of 180 patents on NGTs. Under this system, third party access to patented traits and varietal creation technologies can be defined under private law by the members of the platform. In practice, a parallel and non-transparent ‘one-stop shop’ has been created for farmers and breeders, who will have to pay a fee to access varieties and traits owned by platform members.
Immediate action is needed to contain the problem while there is still time. At the Italian level, this means stopping the relaxation of controls on field trials, while at the European level it means maintaining mandatory risk assessment, traceability and labelling for NGTs.
