Hope Not Hype - Third World Network

100 Hope Not Hype
either for patent protection or through a system created specifically for the purpose (“sui
generis”), or a combination of the two. The sui generis system is generally believed to be akin
to a PVP system (Gepts, 2004, p. 1296).
What followed was a shift in intellectual property from the public to the private
sector.
Early scientific excitement led to major investments by the private sector in [modern] biotech
– especially in the US and Europe. These investments were driven, in part, by changes in
patent law in industrialised countries which began to allow patenting of biotechnology tools
and products, including living organisms. Since the mid to late 1980s, firms have been able to
protect biological innovations through patents and hence appropriate more of the returns to
their research investments. The prospects of greater appropriability – and greater profits – led
them to invest even greater amounts in biotechnology research (p. 192)…production of
technology [in agriculture] is almost entirely in the hands of the private sector. All plant
biotechnology that has been commercialised in the world, with the exception of China, was
developed by the private sector (Pray and Naseem, 2007, p. 196).
Patents and patent-like PVP are the instruments of IPR change in agriculture. Patents
“provide more control since [plant variety protection] certificates have a research exemption
allowing others to use the new variety for research purposes” (quote from Fernandez-
Cornejo and Caswell, 2006, p. 2; see also Mascarenhas and Busch, 2006). The use of IPR
in this way is seen not just as an entitlement by the industry, but as a pathway to world
salvation –
As for intellectual property rights, it is only if companies like Syngenta protect their intellectual
property that they can invest in products to benefit all. Innovation is only created through
investment, and investment must be rewarded – another seemingly obvious fact which was
overlooked [in the IAASTD reports] (Keith, 2008, p. 18).
– according to an industry representative (and former Assessment author).
It is unclear why these new IPR protections were needed for agriculture, considering
that they have neither been necessary for, nor successful at, increasing yields over Green
Revolution advances (see Chapter Five), nor for a sustained reduction in pesticide use
(Chapter Six).
More remarkable perhaps has been the intensive adoption of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready
soybean since its introduction – in spite of the lack of any significant yield increase. For
example, Monsanto accounted for 91 per cent of the worldwide GM soybean area in 2004.
However, Ervin et al. suggest that when examined worldwide, all currently available transgenic
crops account for a yield increase of no more than 2 per cent. In fact, in some instances
farmers actually experienced a yield decrease (Mascarenhas and Busch, 2006, p. 129).