Message-ID: <33BB0978.E94@erols.com> Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 22:07:53 -0400 From: John Daly <mailto:dalyj@erols.com> Subject: Re: Quinoa Patent Info Online To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Edward Hammond of the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) has recently sent a message to this listserve which is part of a continuing series on a U.S. patent for male-sterile cytoplasm derived from the Apelawa variety of quinoa. I read the materials to which he referred. I don't know much about RAFI, but I fear that the materials presented give me a very bad impression of that organization. While its organizational purpose of preserving agricultural biodiversity is one I support strongly, RAFI seems to have gone overboard in the wrong direction on this patent.A patent is granted to allow an inventor the right to exclude others from the exploitation of his/her invention for a period of years in exchange for divulging the invention. In the case under discussion, according to RAFI's web page, the U.S. patent office granted a patent limited to male-sterile cytoplasmic material from Apelawa quinoa. It turns out to be hard to get cytoplasmic male-sterile lines of some grains, and apparently of the pseudograin quinoa. The inventors, Johnson and Ward demonstrated that they had indeed obtained such germplasm. Unfortunately it turned out that the genes that conferred the property came from a related weed species, and the trait could not be used for commercial production of hybrid quinoa because it has not been possible to find other necessary complementary germplasm in quinoa.
Economic studies of the value of the exclusionary right conferred by patents have suggested the value is generally very low. In part this is because many inventions don't work out in practice, and in part because it is difficult to actually exclude others from practicing an invention or working around it. In this case, it appears that the patent has no value because it will not lead to commercial hybrid quinoa. On the other hand, if it had been possible to produce hybrid quinoa seed using the Johnson/Ward approach I think a patent might have been helpful in attracting seed companies to develop the technology and its market. If you don't get seed to the farmers they will not benefit from the technology, and the private sector is usually the best way of getting hybrid seed to the market. But companies like and need patent protection for their investments. Of course holding a patent does not mean that the inventors are prohibited from giving royaltee free license to the technology if they chose, and technology is often given away for good purposes.
There are a lot of niche crops like quinoa, and the farmers growing these crops in poor countries generally don't get much help from the experimental stations in development of improved varieties. With the decrease in support of donors for agricultural research, the likelihood of improving this situation is low. On the other hand, if commercial interests can be shown profits in R&D on these crops, they could take up the slack. Johnson/Ward were working in a very reasonable approach to get people to invest in improving technology for Andean farmers!
I personally believe that these crops have a global importance. Some 60 percent of human food comes from four crops, and almost all our food globally comes from a mere handful of crops. It takes a long time to develop a crop on a global scale, and soybeans and red palm oil are the only examples that come to mind of new global crops in this century. Quinoa and other traditional crops now growing in narrow cultural or ecological niches appear a likely source for new global crops, but only if research and development attention are devoted to them. My Irish ancestors found out what happens when the potato crop fails, and I would prefer global food security to be based on a wider genetic base than it is now.
Now, how helpful has RAFI been in understanding this patent and its implications, and what is on their web site. For example, we find:
"'For the Andean people the US patent on a traditional Bolivian quinoa variety affects our food security because we will not be able to freely produce our quinoa, which is known in the Quechua and Aymara languages as: Jupha, juira, ch'isiway mama and quinoa. This would result in less food production, causing destabilization of our food supply and resulting in more hunger and malnutrition in our families.'....Translated from the Spanish. Letter to Hope Shand of RAFI, from Felix Gutierrez Matta, ANAPQUI, dated 2 June 1997, La Paz."
This statement is factually incorrect. Edward Hammond reports talking with the President of ANAPQUI this morning, and Hammond surely should understand that the U.S. patent is not on a traditional quinoa variety (but on a modification of that variety to include foreign genetic material which confers cytoplasmic male sterility), and has no conceivable negative effect on Andean food security. He does not report trying to clarify the misconceptions held at ANAPQUI. Note that RAFI includes this statement in its Peoples Tribune Submission, but with quotes so that ANAPQUI will have to bear alone the burden of the inaccuracies.
Also I found:
"'The human rights of the indigenous peoples of the Andes have been seized by the North American researchers at Colorado State University. They have robbed our quinoa, whose genes we have maintained for thousands of years, transferring our knowledge and technology from generation to generation.'....Translated from the Spanish. Letter to Hope Shand of RAFI, from Felix Gutierrez Matta, ANAPQUI, dated 2 June 1997, La Paz."
This statement is also incorrect. Johnson/Ward appear to have been the first to reduce to practice a method for the production of cytoplasmic male-sterile Apelawa quinoa which resulted from the inventor's research and development of germplasm that came from a cross of Andean quinoa and a related Colorado species. The patent examiner (and I) believe that the invention was not an obvious extension of current practive and showed real innovation. Ownership of the invention arising from their observation, knowledge and labor is legitimately Johnson and Ward's, and their specific invention does not belong to the people growing quinoa in traditional ways unless Johnson and Ward chose to make it so. Terms like "seized" and "robbed" are not only inaccurate but inflammatory.
I don't know them, but Johnson appears from his bio to be an experienced scientist doing useful work on new crops, and Ward a young scientist with considerable potential in the same field. In the RAFI web site the work of these people is described under the heading "Biopiracy Update". I find the implication about these scientists to be ethically unacceptable! Johnson and Ward are clearly not pirates.
In a situation in which scientific expertise is centralized in developed countries, and millions of people in developing countries need access to this expertise to improve the productivity of their crops, fomenting North-South distrust and antagonism seems counterproductive. RAFI's web page in its extensive coverage of this relatively unimportant patent seems to be deliberately exacerbating distrust rather than reducing it.
I believe that unless the world learns to recognize agricultural biodiversity as a resource, it will not protect that diversity. Johnson and Ward appear to be experts who can demonstrate the value in biodiversity, and thus convince people it is a resource. If we are to both preserve diversity in crops like quinoa and accommodate legitimate demands of farmers growing the crops for relief from poverty, a very careful balancing will be needed in which diverse materials to be saved and improved varieties will both be used. As far as I can see there is going to have to be an alliance between farmers and experts to make this work. The partnership will not be built on distrust and misinformation. RAFI senior staff in this case seem to be disseminating misinformation and creating distrust between farmers and experts.
RAFI is apparently a small shop. Pat Roy Mooney is the executive director, and in my opinion his comments in the correspondence on the web site are either disingenuous or demonstrate a lack of understanding of patent law and the technology. RAFI has a staff (given variously on the web site) of 5 to 8 people, and a salary budget in 1996 is reported of approximately $143 thousand (Canadian I assume). They spent $50 thousand on travel and $57 thousand on consultant fees in 96. I suggest that those of you with contacts with RAFI's funding agents and board members pass this message on to them.
Unfortunately the page in the web page annual report on sources of funds is blank, but RAFI identifies the following sources of funds: "Agricultural Missions (USA); Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Canadian International Development Agency (International NGO Division); PRO-DLO Centre for Genetic Resources (Netherlands); CS Fund (USA); Cultural Survival Canada; Dutch Ministry for International Cooperation - DGIS (Netherlands); Goldsmith Foundation (UK); GTZ (Germany); Hahn Family Foundation (USA); HKH Foundation (USA); International Development Research Foundation (Canada); Inter Pares (Canada); Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation (USA); M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (India); Moriah Fund (USA); Noragric (Norway); Right Livelihood Foundation (Sweden); Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency; Swiss Development Cooperation; UN Food and Agriculture Organization; Warsh-Mott Legacy (USA); World Council of Churches.
The RAFI Board of Trustees is composed of: Sven Hamrell, Uppsala, Sweden, RAFI President, Director of Dag Hammarskjold Foundation for 30 years; Tim Brodhead, Montreal (Quebec), Canada, J.W. McConnell Foundation; Rene Salazar, Manila, Philippines, coordinator of SEARICE network on genetic conservation and use; Helen Vinton, New Iberia (Louisiana), USA, Southern Research and Development Corporation; Melaku Worede, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Director, Ethiopian Gene Bank, 1977-93; Alejandro Argumedo, Ayacucho, Peru / Ottawa (Ontario), Canada Director, Cultural Survival Canada, Coordinator, Indigenous Peoples' Biodiversity Network; Sarojeni Rengam, Penang, Malaysia Asian Coordinator, Pesticide Action Network; Ann Danaiya Usher, Bangkok, Thailand/Oslo, Norway Journalist; Elizabeth Bravo, Quito, Ecuador Biologist and member of Acción Ecologica
------------------------------------ John A. Daly Consultant Science, Technology and Development 14205 Bauer Dr. Rockville, MD 20853 mailto:dalyj@erols.com (301) 460-6364 ------------------------------------