Trade: Beg, Borrow or Steal - to patent

Washington, Jan. 23 (IPS/Danielle Knight ) -- An international probe into "bio- piracy" regarding several claims to seed patents has been given a shot in the arm after two Australian companies were forced to drop patent requests on seed varieties found to have been taken from an agricultural research organisation based in India.

Two Australian crop development agencies were forced to abandon their claims on two chickpea varieties they admitted were obtained from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), located in Hyderabad. ICRISAT charged that the Australian claims ignored a signed agreement that the agencies would not commercialise or license the varieties which they had obtained only for research purposes.

Although the two patent claims have been dropped, critics say the issue remains very much on the front-burner.

"The chickpea example is not an isolated case," says Edward Hammond, a researcher with the U.S. branch of the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), an advocacy organisation. "Other cases involving international research centres located in Syria and Colombia appear to
raise all, or most, of the same issue. The shocker is how widespread possible abuses may be."

Both the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Bank-based Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research have joined non-governmental organisations in an investigation of the various patent claims.

This followed the climb down by two Australian seed companies, Agriculture West Australia (AWA) and the Centre for Legumes to Mediterranean Agriculture (CLIMA) who were forced to drop their patent claims on the two varieties of chickpeas. They argued unsuccessfully that they had recognised ICRISAT as the source of the material.

One of the two chickpea varieties originated in Iran but had been further developed at ICRISAT. The second variety came directly from farmers' fields in Andra Pradesh, India where it is still widely used.
Since RAFI blew the whistle on CLIMA and AWA, rural development and agriculture organisations in Asia are charging the Australian companies with "bio-piracy."

"Australia is privatizing seeds that belong to our farmers, and they plan to sell them back to us with their own self-authorised plant monopoly," said Farhad Mazhar of UBINIG, a Bangladesh-based group that networks with farmer organisations throughout South Asia.

"No work was done to improve upon the Indian variety. It was a direct piracy of the genius of farmers there."

While the Australian agencies admitted that they were not the original breeders of the two strains of chickpea germplasm, they still proceeded to apply for Plant Breeders Rights (PBR) - a patent-like intellectual property claim for crops - with the Australian government, according to
RAFI.

Curiously, CLIMA and AWA have acknowledged that the Australian government will not process a PBR if the applicants are neither the original breeders, nor have the permission of the original breeders.

"At all times Australia's PBR office have acted correctly and have not and would not process any application without ICRISAT's consent knowing that they are the original breeders of the material," John Hamlin, director of CLIMA told IPS.

Before they withdrew their requests for patent claims this month, CLIMA strongly urged ICRISAT to reconsider PBR restrictions on the chickpea strands without advising them that the patent request process was already underway, according to correspondence between the seed agencies
obtained by IPS.

The letters from Australia also suggest that if ICRISAT does not comply there could be repercussions affecting research cooperation between the two parties, says Mooney.

"This has rung some alarm bells at CLIMA, because of its implications for future developments joint work," Hamlin wrote to ICRISAT.

This chickpea patent controversy has drawn international attention to the Australians for several reasons. The Indian variety was protected from commercialisation by a trusteeship agreement between ICRISAT and the FAO in Rome. Currently, while the UN organisation is completing a
legally binding treaty on the exchange of germplasm, both the FAO and the World Bank-based CGIAR say they are investigating the chickpea claims.

The CGIAR germplasm collections were placed under the auspices of the FAO in 1995, with provisions specifying that they should be managed in a manner consistent with the Convention on Biological Diversity. This trusteeship agreement involves nearly half-a-million seed accessions
from all over the world.

Last December, delegates to an FAO negotiating conference on the legally-binding germplasm exchange treaty were surprised to find that Australia was opposed to one of the longstanding principles of the treaty - Farmers' Rights.

These rights, accepted by the FAO in 1985 and at the United Nations Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992, recognise the historic and continuing contribution of farmers in crop germplasm conservation and development that requires that farmers share in any benefits arising from the use of germplasm.

So far, 26 different crop varieties, that originated in other countries, are going through the Australian PBR process or already under patent, says RAFI Executive Director Pat Mooney. "We have four
confirmed cases where germplasm protected by the FAO-CGIAR treaty are subject to Australian PBR claims," she adds.

"There are 14 other cases where PBR claims may have been made on farmers' varieties from other countries even though Australian breeders seem to have little or nothing to improve them," adds Hammond.

While RAFI and other organisations are calling upon the Australian government to suspend processing Plant Breeders Rights claims until the true ownership can be confirmed, the groups are also looking to the FAO and CGIAR to determine the exact status of each of the 26 varieties.

Yet, although the FAO and CGAIR have agreed to work together to find a solution, non-governmental organisations say the two bodies do not have a clear plan to monitor and report abuses.

"It is already obvious that the trusteeship between FAO and CGIAR needs improvement," says Mooney. "Neither organisation has the resources nor the ability - despite their good will - to even determine what germplasm is part of the trust arrangement and what is not."

"Somebody needs to take action," says UBINIG's Mazhar.
"The trusteeship agreement involves close to a half million seed accessions of which about 40 percent are unique. It represents an incredibly valuable agricultural asset. Yet neither the UN agency nor the 11 research centres involved seem to know who is responsible to do what."