|
Monsanto victory plants seed of privatization
By Stephen Leahy
Brooklin, Canada, Oct. 5 (IPS) — Canadian farmers’
traditional right to save seeds is being threatened by proposals to
collect royalties on virtually all such seeds following agribusiness
giant Monsanto’s victory over grower Percy Schmeiser.
A recent review of Canada’s entire production and regulatory system
for the seeds farmers plant looked at ways to collect payments (royalties)
on seeds the growers save from their own crops, to link crop insurance
to the use of purchased certified seeds and to increase intellectual
property protection for seed companies.
“It’s a fundamental shift in agriculture to the privatization
of seeds,” says Terry Pugh, executive secretary of Canada’s
National Farmer’s Union (NFU). “There are no benefits [in
this] for farmers.”
Formally known as the Seed Sector Review, Pugh described the process
as an industry-driven restructuring of Canada’s seed production
system. Companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Dupont, which
dominate Canada’s seed industry, are pushing for “deregulation”
and increased profitability, he added in an interview.
The essence of the review is to turn growers into consumers of seed
from producers of seed. “Farmers can’t believe this is happening,”
added Pugh.
Various regulations in Canada’s laws have long protected farmers
from unscrupulous seed sellers by requiring that new varieties of wheat
and other grains pass a merit test. Before they could be sold to farmers
their makers had to prove they offered better yields, improved disease
resistance or agronomic performance.
Until the 1990s most of the research into new seed varieties was done
either by government researchers or publicly funded university plant
breeders. To encourage corporate seed research, Canada created the Plant
Breeders Rights Act (PBR) in 1990.
Under the PBR when farmers bought certified (high quality) seed from
a company they could save seed from their crop for their own use the
following year but could not sell it to anyone else. This seed saving
for a farmer’s own use could continue indefinitely but growers
were technically prohibited from selling it.
In fact, after several years most farmers felt free to sell what they
felt had become “common” seed. And seed companies did not
particularly object as long as farmers did not try and pass off what
they felt was lower-quality or impure seed as one of their registered
varieties.
That is all about to change as Canada’s federal agricultural department
appears more interested in protecting the profits of seed companies
than farmers, says Paul Beingessner, a third-generation grain and livestock
farmer near Truax in the province of Saskatchewan.
“There’s lots of seed trading among farmers here. We rarely
buy certified seed for cereals. It’s rarely better seed and just
not necessary,” Beingessner said in an interview.
If Saskatchewan spring wheat growers had to buy certified seed each
year, it would increase their costs by an average of $1,110 per farm,
he calculates. He estimates that five percent of all wheat and barley
growers in the province, the heart of Canada’s “bread basket,”
buy new seed.
The proposals in the Seed Sector Review are an attempt to force more
farmers to buy certified seed from the seed companies, says Beingessner.
“It’s a money grab, pure and simple.”
The royalty provisions would also mean that farmers would one day have
to pay royalties on traded seed.
Bill Leask, executive director of the Canadian Seed Trade Association,
one of four groups that initiated the review, would hardly use those
words but feels those who bring new varieties to market should be rewarded
for their efforts.
“It costs between one and two million dollars to create a new variety
of seed,” Leask said in an interview. The CSTA says it has $577
million in sales annually.
While he acknowledges that new varieties are only possible because of
the breeding efforts of farmers over the past millennia, Leask argues
“today’s seeds are nothing like they were then, and are long
ways from the seeds of 50 years ago.”
The review’s final recommendations will soon be put before the
government but they do not include a royalty provision for saved seeds,
Leask says. “The NFU is completely wrong about this. There are
no royalty provisions in Canada.”
However, the seed industry does think royalties have merit and would
like to look at such a proposal in the future, he adds.
Although the Seed Sector Review began in 2003, it is consistent with
a push for corporate control of seed, best illustrated in Monsanto’s
May 2004 Supreme Court victory over Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser,
both Pugh and Beingessner believe.
Monsanto alleged that Schmeiser illegally saved its genetically engineered
Roundup Ready canola (oilseed rape) in 1997, after the firm obtained
plants from his farm the following year that contained its patented
genetics.
Throughout six years of litigation, Schmeiser steadfastly maintained
his fields were contaminated by pollen from a neighbor’s Roundup
Ready canola fields and by seeds that blew off trucks on their way to
a nearby processing plant.
Despite widespread evidence of contamination on many other farms, the
Supreme Court determined the farmer infringed on Monsanto’s legal
rights under Canada’s Patent Act by “using” the company’s
patented gene when he harvested and sold his crop.
That decision remains highly controversial.
Recently Rene Van Acker, a University of Manitoba agricultural expert,
wrote to tell the Supreme Court that seed samples from Schmeiser’s
contested 1997 crop that he tested were not 95-98 percent Roundup Ready
canola, as Monsanto claimed. Rather, the amount of Roundup Ready canola
in the crop varied between three to 67 percent, depending on the sample
tested.
Other research has shown that Roundup Ready canola has spread widely,
and now shows up in ditches, schoolyards and city lots. Even the purest,
certified non-genetically engineered canola now contains up to 4.9 percent
Roundup Ready content, Van Acker writes.
Moreover, the researcher says he cannot find any documents that substantiate
Monsanto’s claim that Schmeiser’s crop was 95 percent contaminated.
At the heart of the debate over ownership of seeds is the principle
of a farmer’s right to save seeds. The Schmeiser case and the recommendations
of the Seed Sector Review are completely contradictory to the International
Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, which came into force this summer,
says Pat Mooney of the ETC Group, a Canadian non-governmental organization
(NGO) that was heavily involved in the treaty negotiations.
“The treaty is very strong on farmer seed saving. Canada was the
first country to ratify the treaty,” Mooney told IPS.
In Leask’s view the treaty is all about protecting the rights of
indigenous people in developing countries, who have saved seeds for
centuries. In Canada there is no legal right of farmers to save seed,
he argues.
The review recommends the government acknowledge farmers’ “privilege”
to save seed for their own holdings, an approach Leask supports. “I
don’t think farmers ought to have a legal right to save seeds,”
he adds.
Arizona’s shrinking lake a stark
warning to America’s west
By Dan Glaister
Lake Powell, Arizona, Oct. 11 — An unexpected sight greets
the vacationer out for a gentle cruise on the 186-mile Lake Powell in
Arizona. A mile or so upriver from the Glen Canyon dam stand red and
green channel markers to guide those on the water. But the signs planted
in the riverbank are of little use today: thanks to a drought which
is entering its sixth year, the lake’s water level has dropped
by 130 feet, leaving the signs on each bank stranded at the top of a
cliff.
Steve Ward, who works for a tourism company, steers his motorboat into
a bay and points to an island across the sparkling blue water. “Normally
we’d go across there to leave the bay,” he says, “Right
now we can’t, because there’s land in the way.”
That land, like the many newly emerged beaches dotted around the lake,
would normally be under 90 feet of water.
Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the US, which fills the
canyons straddling the border between Utah and Arizona, is an important
link in the chain of water supply drawn from the Colorado River. So
the falling water levels are not just a story of a tourist attraction
facing tough times, but an environmental problem that may have a fundamental
impact on life in seven of the states of the western US, notably the
thirsty states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.
That supply keeps agriculture in the south-west of the US irrigated,
provides for the needs of industry, keeps lawns sprinkled and green,
and enables people to wash their cars and themselves. Without the water
from the Colorado river most of the west would revert to its natural
state: a desert.
This year the drought has hit home, causing alarm among the community
of scientists, technicians, and bureaucrats whose job it is to slake
the thirst of the west.
“If the drought continues it will force the states to sit down
and take some truly tough decisions,” says Ken Rice, the manager
of the dam, who works for the government’s Bureau of reclamation.
“It really depends on what mother nature does over the next few
years.”
The threat of the drought is made tangible by the declining lake levels.
Further down the Colorado river near Las Vegas, at Lake Mead —
the biggest reservoir in the US, created by the Hoover dam -- the remains
of a once submerged village are starting to emerge.
At Lake Powell, the “bathtub ring,” a white mark left on the
orange sandstone of the canyon by the receding lake, provides a jarring
reminder of where the water should be, and a handy indicator that the
lake is just 38 percent full, with a level of 1,088 meters.
When the lake drops to 1,064meters, it will have reached the minimum
level at which the two power stations that use its water can operate
safely, and the lake will effectively be decommissioned.
Pictures of the Lake Powell Lodge at Wahweap — literally “bitter
water,” the lake’s largest resort — show it perched on
the shore, water lapping at its foundations. Today it is a third of
a mile from the water’s edge.
The concrete launch ramp built to enable the thousands of holidaymakers
who come to Wahweap each year to put their houseboats, dinghies, speedboats,
and jet skis on to the lake stops about 10 meters short of the water.
It has been extended twice in the past year, and in August a system
of welded steel tubes was laid into the water to provide additional
access. The total cost of bringing the tourists back to the water’s
edge at Wahweap has been $5 million.
But with the level of the lake falling by 20 inches a week, unless there
is significant rainfall between now and the spring, and unless the snowmelt
that contributes most of the water increases on recent years, the ramp
will have to be extended again for next year.
“We’ve been releasing more water than has been coming in,
due to our legal obligations,” says Rice, turning to look out of
his office window on top of the dam.
The legal obligations explain why the drought could have a profound
impact on the way water is used as far away as California.
The Colorado River is the subject of a complex series of contracts and
compacts dating back to 1922. Known as the law of the river, they establish
a hierarchy of demand on the Colorado’s water, with California
having the greatest say.
Should the water start to dry up and real cuts in supply be made, other
states will lose their supply before California, which receives some
14 percent of its water from the river. Water trading and legal fees
are the most likely outcome of any attempt to implement the law of the
river.
“Our role is to make the states understand that if they don’t
get their act together, we will step in,” says Bennett Raley, assistant
secretary for water and science at the US Interior Department, which
oversees the Bureau of Reclamation.
Raley, who has been going to water meetings since he was 11, says the
drought should make people change the way they think about and use water,
and that farming in the west should look both at its practices and at
its choice of crops.
“People say that the west has obviously grown out of its water
supply and must stop growing,” he says. “That’s reasonable
on the face of it, but not true. The issue in time of drought is what
will be the relationship between irrigated agriculture and the cities.
The secretary of the interior does not have the legal authority to say,
‘Needs have changed, we’re going to reallocate water from
agriculture to urban use.’ The view of this administration is that
the market is the best way to make those changes.”
But some argue that the reservoir should simply be allowed to drain
away. “Glen Canyon dam and Lake Powell are unnecessary and counterproductive
for the water needs of the west,” says Chris Peterson of the Glen
Canyon Institute.
“They’ve destroyed one of the most beautiful places in the
world. We’re in a water management crisis. We’re dealing with
a system that is 50 years old. It’s like a 57 Chevy.
“Since that time, America has started to appreciate its wildlife,
and we’ve also realized that there are better ways of storing water.
We live in a desert. There’s plenty of water — the question
is who gets it and how is it stored.”
He predicts that if the drought continues (and some say that it is not
a drought, but a return to normal conditions after a 50-year wet period),
any attempt to enact the law of the river will become mired in litigation.
Ward starts to climb the steep slope from the water’s edge to the
latest temporary car park. “I choose to be optimistic and tell
people there’s things we haven’t seen for 30 years, come and
see them before they’re covered up,” he says.
“I don’t consider this drought to be a danger to Lake Powell
as much as it is to the west of America. If this is a 30-year drought,
things are going to have to change all over America.”
Source: Guardian (UK)
Harpy eagles take flight again
By Diego Cevallos
Mexico City, Mexico, Oct. 6 (Tierramérica) — Thanks
to Panama, the remarkable harpy eagle may soon fly free of its endangered
status. But for that to happen, the harmful actions of humans must
stop — and it would still take 20 to 25 years.
Panama is the only Latin American country that has focused its attention
on protecting this eagle species, Harpia harpyja, which for hundreds
of years flew over an area stretching from Mexico to Argentina, but
began to disappear as a result of destruction of its habitat and because
it was targeted by hunters.
After four years of work, the Panama Peregrine Fund recently released
five harpy eagles, all hatched in captivity. Two have already established
territory in protected areas of Panama, and the other three are in
nature parks in Belize.
This is considered a major success. In 2001, 17 chicks hatched in
captivity, 2002 and 2003 produced 14 more — figures that surpass
what had been achieved by scientists in the United States, another
country attempting to rescue this bird of prey.
Seven harpies have hatched in captivity in the United States, but
over a period of 10 years.
However, despite the successes, a great deal is yet to be done to
ensure the future of the harpy, which is endangered, like hundreds
of bird species in Latin America and the Caribbean.
According to the United Nations Environment Program, there are more
than 400 kinds of birds in the region that are classified as “vulnerable,”
“endangered,” and “gravely endangered.” The harpy
eagle is one of them.
This bird of prey can stand more than three feet tall, with a wingspan
of more than six feet, and weigh around eighteen pounds. According
to National Geographic magazine, the early European explorers of South
America named harpy eagles after the predatory half-woman, half-bird
of Greek myth.
In the region there are more than 300 mammals that are threatened
to different degrees, in addition to more than 150 types of fish,
more than 100 reptiles, and some 30 amphibians. The biggest numbers
of endangered species are found in the countries with greatest biodiversity:
Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru.
What has been achieved with the harpy eagle is important, but it will
be 20 to 25 years before it can be known whether the rescue project
has achieved its goal, Magali Linares, director of the Peregrine Fund,
which operates with the support of US scientists and donors, told
Tierramérica.
By 2006, it will be known whether the first five birds released have
found mates and reproduced. The scientists then will determine how
long the harpy’s reproductive life lasts, calculate its mortality
rate, continue the release program, and finally distribute the birds
throughout Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America), the ideal habitat
for this species.
“Our project is unprecedented in Latin America. Venezuela and
Ecuador have shown interest in harpy eagle reproduction, but they
have not yet carried out this type of program,” said Linares.
The goal of the Peregrine Fund is for the species’ full recovery
in Panama, then in Belize, and ultimately in the greater part of the
Mesoamerican region.
This large bird of prey, which despite its size generally tries to
pass unnoticed, finds the humid tropical forest, up to altitudes of
2,400 feet above sea level, to be its ideal habitat. The harpy’s
diet includes monkeys, sloths, parrots, and certain reptiles found
in the tropical rainforest canopy.
The bird is threatened with extinction, but some can still be found
in Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela.
In Panama, where the government declared the harpy eagle its national
bird in 2002, there are fewer than 50 harpy nests. But that number
will surely grow with the release of birds hatched in captivity once
they are three years old.
“We are going to continue working for the harpy eagle,”
but the future of this species will also depend on rescue and conservation
efforts in other countries and on a reduction of environmental pressures
in the harpy habitat, said Linares.
|
