Editorial Another Development and Plant Genetic Resources

176 Pages·2003·2.75 MB·English

Editorial
Another Development
and Plant Genetic Resources
In the 1975 Dag Hammarskjold Report, What Now: Another Develop-
ment, it was emphasized that an alternative conceptual framework was
needed for the future development of the world and that Another De-
velopment should be need-oriented, endogenous, self-reliant, ecologically
sound and based on structural transformations.
In pointing up the need for strengthening the Third World's capacity for
self-reliant development, it was, furthermore, stressed that this entailed
'Exercising the right of national economic sovereignty over resources and
production, ending the drain of resources from the Third World to the
industrialized countries' by, inter alia, reviewing 'contracts, leases and
concessions entered into with transnational corporations under conditions
of inequality' and 'regulations of conditions governing trade in technology
including the revision of the present patent system'. In order to achieve
these objectives, citizens must exercise their 'right to inform and be
informed about the facts of development, its inherent conflicts and the
changes it will bring about, locally and internationally', thereby promoting
a process of 'conscientization' and ensuring full participation in the deci-
sion-making process.
The Dag Hammarskjold Foundation has since the publication of What
Now sought to contribute to this process of 'conscientization' by organiz-
ing a long series of seminars on the problems of establishing a New
International Order on the basis of the ideas of Another Development. As
readers of this journal are well aware, these seminars have dealt with
sectoral issues such as Another Development in Health, Education, Scien-
ce and Technology and Law as well as with such broader issues as the
International Monetary System, the Automatic Mobilization of Resources
for Development and the New World Information and Communication
Order.
Since the late 1960s, the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation has also taken an
active interest in the problems of rural development and nutrition in
Africa, Asia and Latin America, focusing both on pioneering efforts like
the Bhoomi Sena movement in India and on the wider issue of Another
Development with Women and particularly the role of women in the
rural development of the Third World.
It is, however, striking that during the discussions of these subjects over
the past decade, little attention has been paid to the 'seeds issue' and to
the erosion of plant genetic resources until its global significance was
brought up for discussion by the activities of the International Coalition
2 The Law of the Seed
for Development Action (ICDA), and by the publication of Pat Roy
Mooney's book Seeds of the Earth in 1979.
In order to promote the public debate of this crucial development issue
with its many controversial aspects and in order to assist the increasing
number of non-governmental organizations taking an active interest in its
outcome, we asked Pat Mooney to sum up his experience from seven
years of indefatigable work under the auspices of ICDA. We also asked
him-as a representative of the community of non-governmental orga-
nizations-to end his presentation with a set of Conclusions and Recom-
mendations as to what in his view could be done in this field by applying in
a 'Law of the Seed' the idea of the 'Common Heritage of Mankind' and
the principles of Another Development.
There is little doubt that Pat Mooney, ICDA and other non-governmental
organizations have made an important contribution to the debate about
the future food security of the world. It should, however, be noted that
quite a number of individuals inside and outside the FAO and the UN
System have played an important part in bringing out the issues at stake in
the politics of plant genetic resources. Pat Mooney has drawn on their
experience and knowledge and their views are also reflected in this pub-
lication, which is issued in what we believe is the spirit of Linnaeus and
which comes from the very town where he lived and worked and from
which his disciples went out all over the world to classify and protect our
plant genetic resources.
Introduction
In 1982, the OECD Observer reported that the South contributes US $500
million a year to the value of the United States wheat crop. If anything,
this is a serious underestimate of the real contribution. Were it to be
calculated for all major American crops, the economic impact of the Third
World contribution would reach into several billions of dollars. And what
the Third World does for the Americans, it also does for the Australians
and the Europeans.
What is the nature of this contribution? Germplasm: the genetic charac-
ters added into new varieties of all the world's crops. Almost totally
overlooked in the political and economic debate over the form and need
for agricultural development and food security, germplasm is the absolute
underpinning of the global food system. Without imports of the right
genes, a wheat field might wilt from summer heat, a maize crop might
succumb to mildew, potatoes might not process acceptably and tomatoes
might bruise too easily. It is a simple but profoundly important fact of our
biological and agricultural history that the substantial majority of this
germplasm lies in the Third World. The North may be 'grain-rich' but the
South is 'gene-rich'.
This fact points to our tremendous food inter-dependence. It has a num-
ber of immediate implications.
First of all, while most of the world's breeding material (germplasm) for
all its major crops rests in the South, most of the plant breeding and plant
breeders are located in the North. For some years now, a kind of gene
drain has been underway, siphoning off the Third World's germplasm to
'gene banks' and breeding programmes in the North. The South has been
donating this material in the belief that its botanical treasures form part of
the 'Common Heritage' of all humanity. Meanwhile, the North has been
patenting the offshoots of this common heritage and is now marketing its
new varieties, at great profit, around the world.
A debate on the efficacy of all this is now underway at FAO in Rome in
the form of a resolution passed in 1981 calling for a legally binding
International Convention on the exchange of plant genetic resources
(germplasm) and the creation of a system of internationally controlled
gene banks.
Secondly, the new bio-technologies (recombinant DNA et. al.) highlight
the fundamental importance of access to Third World genes. To date, the
South has been an unwitting 'raw materials' supplier to this high-tech
4 The Law of the Seed
industry. UNIDO and other agencies have devoted their energies to
advising Third World governments on how they might accommodate them-
selves to receive the new technologies. At stake, however, is a prize that
may-in its agricultural applications alone-be valued at US $100 million
by the end of the century. Genetically and climatically, the South has no
need to be a bit player in this new technology. There are compelling
practical as well as political reasons why much of this new technology
should be based in the South.
Thirdly, the scientific community has become aware that the introduction
of new plant varieties via the Green Revolution or commercial companies
leads to the elimination of older varieties and the loss of often invaluable
germplasm. Once gone, this germplasm cannot be recovered. 'Genetic
erosion' is now seen as a profound threat to long-term world food security.
The pace of genetic erosion in our crops almost defies exaggeration. Most
of the crop germplasm in the Third World will be gone before this century
is over. Left behind are a comparative 'handful' of modern High Yielding
Varieties (HYV's) and hybrids bred from an ever narrowing genetic base.
The risk of widespread crop 'wipe-outs' because of our vulnerability to
plant disease attack is already alarmingly high. An urgent international
effort is needed to preserve our crop genetic diversity. Existing interna-
tional efforts appear to serve the needs of the North, are poorly financed
and tragically myopic in approach.
Finally, this 'germplasm' poses for the South a political problem (germ-
plasm exchange and control); an environmental crisis (genetic erosion);
and an economic opportunity (increased breeding and work in new tech-
nologies). The scene is very much clouded, however. by dramatic changes
in what has become known as the Genetic Supply Industry. A small
number of very large transnationals-led by Royal DutchIShell, Ciba-
Geigy and Sandoz-have acquired hundreds of seed companies over the
last twelve years and are aggressively moving into the South. Most distur-
bingly, they have an opportunity to combine their leadership in plant
breeding with their dominant position in pesticides manufacturing. At
stake is the future of agricultural development in the South.
Germplasm' gene banks and genetic engineering can seem a long way
from the struggles of peasant farmers to find food and justice. They seem
esoteric compared to the painful burning issues of land reform and rural
credit or even national self-reliance. But germplasm is the raw material of
seeds-and seeds are the first link in the food chain. Some governments
and some chemical companies recognize this and a grab is being made for
Introduction 5
the control of germplasm. There can be no true land reform-no true
agrarian justice of any kind-and certainly no national self-reliance, if our
seeds are subject to exclusive monopoly patents and our plants are bred as
part of a high-input chemicals package in genetically uniform and vulner-,
able crops.
Abbreviations
ASSINSEL International Association of Plant Breeders for the Pro-
tection of Plant Varieties
CGIAR Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research
C1A T International Centre of Tropical Agriculture
CIMMYT International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre
CIP International Potato Centre
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FIS International Federation of Seed Trades
IARC International Agricultural Research Centres
IBPGR International Board for Plant Genetic Resources
ICARDA International Centre for Agricultural Research in
Dry Areas
ICD Industry Council for Development
ICDA International Coalition for Development Action
ICRISAT International Crops Research Institute for the
Semi-Arid Tropics
IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature and
Natural Resources
PR R Plant Breeders Rights
SIDP Seed Improvement and Development Programme (FAO)
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization
UPOV Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants
USDA United States Department of Agriculture
WIPO World Intellectual Properties Organization
The Common Bowl
The Not-So-Renewable Renewable Resource
For the industrialized countries, there is no such thing as a 'home-grown
meal': in a typical Western salad, the tomatoes carry genes from Central
America and the cucumber germplasm originates in Burma; the carrot and
the onion were domesticated in Central Asia while celery and lettuce look
homeward to the Mediterranean; the radishes and welsh onions are from
China. Closer to the staples, the potatoes come from the Andes and most of
our beans come from other parts of Latin America. Most cereals were first
cultivated in the Near East and China. Even the fodder for our livestock
traces its genetic origins to South America and Central Asia. Now the North
is selling back 'modern' varieties of these same crops and the genetic
security of the world's food supply is about to disappear.
In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread. Genesis 3:19
Narrowing The world offers us almost a quarter of a million flowering plant species
the food base -virtually all of which might be edited by science and selection into an
acceptable restaurant menu. At one time or another, many of these plants
have been brought into service. In the days of hunting and gathering, the
choice of foods must have been truly awesome. In an area of limited
botanical diversity such as North America, Indians dined upon 1,112
different plant species and, even today, !King Bushmen in the arid regions
of South Africa make a regular meal of 85 wild vegetables.
Cultivation has changed all this. Despite the wide use of diverse plants
made by hunters and gatherers, humanity may have brought fewer than
1,500 into formal agriculture. Ninety five per cent of our global nutritional
requirements are derived from a mere 30 plant kinds and a full three-
quarters of our diet is based upon only eight crops. For those of us who
confine our hunting and gathering to the super grocery stores that now
stretch from Kansas to Kuala Lumpur, the neon cornucopia seems endless
in its diversity. Late in the 1920's, a typical Canadian grocery boasted 900
different food products. By the middle of this decade, retailers confidently
predict that such stores will claim 15,000 food items. The average store
now has 12,000, including more than 50 dry breakfast cereals. Neverthe-
less, when the cans are open and the cellophane removed, we are left with
the basic 30 crops-and 75 per cent of our cereal intake boils down to rice,
wheat and maize.
The realization that our food choices are continuing to narrow is a fright-
ening one. The refrigerated air transport that brings Europe pineapple
8 The Law of the Seed
from the Pacific, bananas from Africa and mangos from Asia (foods which
play a very minor role in the Northern diet), is still more successful at
globalizing the world's leading crops and their international varieties.
The mundialization of the menu is not new and not wholly attributable to
modern transport or transnationals. True, agribusiness is now advancing
the uniformity of the world's food system to new and alarming heights, but
the basic reality that all humanity feeds from a common bowl has been
with us almost since farmers first scratched the soil.
FruitsIVegetables 1
~uaasro urces 1
Figure 1 Human calorie sources from plants
Narrowing If there is a culprit for the uniformity of the food system, it must be the
the gene base Ice Ages. While the botanical diversity of tropical lands flourished, the
temperate zones lost almost everything under the crushing weight of
century-long iceflows. Agriculture, logically, began in areas of great plant
diversity. These areas have been mapped and named after their discov-
erer, N I Vavilov, a Russian botanist who devoted much of his life to plant
exploration and collection. The Vavilov Centres can generally be asso-
ciated with areas of great early civilizations. The centre of origin of a food
plant was often in mountainous tropical regions where survival conditions
could change abruptly within a few metres and where the breeding
orientation of the plant, abetted by climate, migrating animals, etc.,
stimulated inter-breeding. Often the centre of cultivation is slightly
different-taking place in the valleys and lowland areas adjacent to the
Map 1 Vavilov's Centres of diversity '
centre of origin. The best food plants in each region of diversity were
selected for cultivation.
As societies moved, so did successful seeds. Some crops proved remark-
ably adaptable. Today, Asian rice can be found from sea level to 2,200
metres and while some thrive in semi-arid climates, others withstand
submersion under 6 metres of water. Sorghum does well in semi-arid parts
of Asia and in the wet tropics of Africa. Potatoes grow from well below
sea level to well above the Andean tree line and so far north in Sweden
and Finland as to be inside the Arctic Circle. Wheat survives almost
everywhere. Even the finicky tomato pokes its way along the Baltic Sea.
As a rule, when seeds of a crop move further and further from their
genetic 'homeland', their gene diversity declines. Occasionally, the nar-
rowness of the genetic base of the transplanted crop leads to disaster.
Thus, the Irish potato succumbed to blight in the 1840's and Sri Lanka
coffee was overwhelmed in the 1870's. Rusts constantly ravaged the North
American wheat crop early in this century and the Caribbean banana and
sugarcane industries have more than once tottered on the brink of extinc-
tion due to the narrowness of their gene base.
Plant disasters are also human disasters: two million Irish died with the
failure of the potato and millions more fled to other parts of Europe and
North America. The wheat losses during the First World War led to some
serious deprivation in North America. Even if coffee and bananas are
something less than food staples, crop wipe-outs can impose immense
human hardship. Nor have we learned our lesson. The Great Bengal
Famine of 1943 was due to the conquest of the rice crop by brown spot
10 The Law of the Seed
disease. At that same time, half a world away, Americans were losing
their oat crop to Victoria blight. In 1970, southern corn leaf blight shook
US agriculture to its very roots. Brown planthopper disease threatened to
destroy the rice harvest in Indonesia and the Philippines in the mid-
seventies. The risk to our food system has not gone away simply because
we know about the uniformity problem.
In each of these cases the crop was a long way from home. In every case,
emergency infusions of new genes from the original centre of diversity
were needed to maintain the crop. Potatoes, for example, originate in the
Andes region of South America. Be they Dutch, Irish or Canadian, potato
breeders today depend heavily upon imported Latin American 'germ-
plasm' to stave off new famines. Sri Lanka's coffee, on the other hand, has
its genetic home in Ethiopia. Even today, the entire Latin American
coffee industry looks to the Horn of Africa to guarantee its future.
Wheat-while having a wide diversity in a large area of Asia-originates
in Ethiopia and in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East. Bananas come
from Southeast Asia . . . as does sugarcane. Although the rice of the
Bengali famine originates in Asia, the American oat crop once again looks
to the Near East for survival. New maize introductions from Latin Amer-
ica assured the continuity of the US 'corn' crop after the 1970 debacle.
Agronomists are aware that genetic uniformity equals disease vulnerabil-
ity and have, for some years, tried to diversify their varieties within the
substantial constraints imposed by commercial breeding. In fact, our
awareness of the problem seems to have done nothing to change the
situation. Since the mid-sixties, for example, the concentration upon the
semi-dwarf characteristic in wheat and rice in the Third World has not
only erased much genetic diversity in the traditional homelands for these
crops, but also left the world's two most important food sources more
exposed than ever to wipe-outs from diseases and pests. At the close of
the seventies, the Dutch breeding company, D J van der Have (now
owned by Suiker Unie), identified a random sampling of crops wherein
characteristics important to all the varieties of that crop were provided by
either a single solitary gene or, at best, a complex of a few major genes: a
prescription for crop wipe-out.
With occasional calamitous exceptions, the outward spread of the leading
world food crops took place at a pace that allowed nature to bring along
sufficient gene diversity to enable the plants to adapt to their new homes.
About a century ago, however, the rediscovery of Mendel's Laws of
Genetics created the science of modern plant breeding. In the space of a