[asia-apec 427] No patents on rice! No patents on life!

[Roberto Verzola]

We are collecting signatures for the statement below which will be
presented later by one of the signatories to a WTO meeting in Geneva.
Kindly inform us right away if you want your organization's name added
to this list.

Obet Verzola
Philippine Greens

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NO PATENTS ON RICE!    NO PATENTS ON LIFE!

Statement from Peoples' Movements & NGOs in Southeast Asia to the World
Trade Organization
May 1998

Rice is life in Southeast and other parts of Asia. It has been the
cornerstone of our food, our languages, our cultures - in short, our
life - for thousands of years. Over the centuries, farming communities
throughout the region have developed, nurtured and conserved over a
hundred thousand distinct varieties of rice to suit different tastes
and needs.

The Green Revolution spearheaded by the International Rice Research
Institute (IRRI) in the 1960s resulted the loss of this diversity from
farmers' fields and the spread of wholly unsustainable farming systems
which require high energy inputs such as pesticides, fertilizers,
so-called 'high-yielding' seeds, irrigation systems and supervised
credit schemes. In this process, farmers lost control of their own
seeds, their own knowledge and their own self-confidence. Today,
people are struggling throughout the region to rebuild more
sustainable agriculture systems hinged on farmers' control of genetic
resources and local knowledge.


In the past, the whole cycle of the rice economy was under the control
of farmers themselves, from production through distribution. Today,
global corporations are taking over the rice sector. With the
expansion of industrial farming, global corporations - and their local
subsidiaries=20 - established their predominance in the rice sector
through research programs, interference in policy-making, and their
exports of farm machinery, pesticides and fertilizers. Now, through
the use of genetic engineering, they are increasing their control over
our rice cultures. The kinds of rice that we are promised through this
technology threaten the environment and public health. For example,
herbicide tolerant rice will lead to increased pesticide use. Rice
incorporating Bacillus thuringiensis genes will disrupt ecological
balances. Both of these are unsafe for consumers and will lead to
allergic reactions, increased antibiotic resistance and other health
hazards. New hybrids - such as those based on the so-called
'Terminator Technology' - will force farmers to buy rice seed every
planting season from transnational corporations.


The extension of the patent system through the WTO Agreement on Trade
Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) gives global
corporations the 'right' to claim monopoly ownership over rice - and
life - itself. Companies in the industrialized world have already
started to claim intellectual property rights (IPR) on rice. A
derivative of IR-8,=20 IRRI's 'miracle rice', was monopolised through
IPR in the United States already in the 1980s. Recently, RiceTec, a
company in Texas, has taken out a patent on basmati rice. This is
biopiracy against India and Pakistan. The same company and many others
in the US are now marketing what they label as Jasmine rice. This is
not only intellectual and cultural theft, it also directly threatens
farm communities in Southeast Asia. Jasmine rice comes from Thailand,
where it is grown today by over five million resource-poor farmers who
are trying to develop ecological alternatives for Jasmine rice
production and marketing.

We have to strengthen local groups to assert farmers' and community
rights to counter these trends in the region. For this reason, we make
the following demands:

1. WTO memberstates must recognise that farmers' and community rights
have precedence over intellectual property rights and that IPRs
destroy biodiversity. Many initiatives to develop and implement
farmers' and community rights are underway in Southeast Asia, and must
be supported and strengthened.

2. We encourage the memberstates of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) to support the initiatives of India and the
Organisation for African Unity to resist the extension of IPR systems
and to develop community rights at the local and national levels.

3. Genetic engineering of rice and other foods should be prohibited.

4. Agriculture and biodiversity must be taken out of the WTO regime,
especially the TRIPS Agreement.

5. No patents on rice! No patents on life!

PHILIPPINES

1. MASIPAG (Farmer/Scientist Partnership for Development)
2. CEC (Center for Environmental Concerns)
3. PDG (Paghida-et sa Kauswagan Dev't Group)
4. MAPISAN
5. HAYUMA
6. Assisi Foundation
7. Philippine Greens
8. Dr Oscar Zamora, University of the Philippines Los Banos
9. Dr Romy Quijano, University of the Philippines College of Medicine
10. Sustainable Agriculture Center, Xavier University, Cagayan de Oro City
11. SIBAT (Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya)
12. Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC)
13. GRAIN Los Ba=F1os

THAILAND

1. TREE (Technology for Rural and Ecological Enrichment)
2. BIOTHAI (Thai Network on Biodiversity and Community Rights)

INDONESIA

1. PAN (Pesticides Action Network) Indonesia
2. Anik Wusari, Resource Management and Development Consultant (REMDEC)
3. Omar Sari, Network and Computer Specialist, INFID

CAMBODIA

1. Lot S. Miranda, HEKS Cambodia Programme

Additional endorsements from JAPAN:

1)Hiroko Kubota. University of Kokugakuin,member of JOAA
2)JAPAN:Ichijima Organic Farming Association -Shinji Hashimoto