Hope Not Hype - Third World Network

Growing More Food on Less (Intellectual) Property
105
The combination of the molecular technology and the capability of protecting molecular
inventions by IPR has led to significant activities in the private sector in the area of genetic
engineering of crop plants. While large chemical companies did have the financial wherewithal
to engage in genetic engineering research, they have had to complete their IPR portfolio by
taking over biotechnology companies (often start-ups)…They also needed the necessary seed
marketing channels. The last two objectives were achieved by buying smaller seed companies,
which had neither the financial wherewithal nor technological track record to survive in this
new environment. This has led to a situation in which only five major firms now sell genetically
improved seeds: Monsanto, DuPont/Pioneer, Aventis, Syngenta, and Dow. These same
companies account for about a quarter of total seed sales (Gepts, 2004, p. 1299).
By 1997, the share of U.S. seed sales (including GE and conventional varieties) controlled by
the four largest firms providing seed of each crop reached 92 percent for cotton, 69 percent
for corn, and 47 percent for soybeans (Fernandez-Cornejo and Caswell, 2006, p. 3).
A concern arising from this reorganization of the industry is that it also generates
very powerful forces against reform of the basic rules around which the multi-billiondollar
companies are now consolidating (Barlett and Steele, 2008). The scale of vested
interests in biotechnology patents in particular is growing rapidly (Fernandez-Cornejo and
Caswell, 2006; Pinstrup-Andersen and Cohen, 2000). Recognition of this trend is useful
for understanding why there was such concern in the industry when the Assessment found
reason to criticize how IPR instruments were shaping the biotechnology landscape. For
example:
[Biotechnology industry lobby group CropLife does] not believe that the current draft
assessment adequately reflects the role that modern science and technology, and in particular
our own industry’s technologies, have played in supporting agriculture. In our view, the
IAASTD’s treatment of biotechnology, crop-protection chemistry, the importance of
intellectual property and the role of the private sector has been superficial and negative (Minigh,
2008, p. 685).
The consolidation of the seed industry also has resulted in lower competitiveness
(Pinstrup-Andersen and Cohen, 2000) as the “concentration of the top four” (CR4) seed
companies breached a critical threshold.
In some subsectors, global concentration is much higher – in 2004 one company had 91
percent of the worldwide transgenic soybean area. It is generally believed that when an
industry’s CR4 exceeds 40 percent, market competitiveness begins to decline, leading to
higher spreads between what consumers pay and what producers receive for their produce
(World Bank, 2007, pp. 135-136).
The World Bank analysis is corroborated by the observations of other prominent
researchers in the field (e.g., Delmer, 2005), and of the poor farmers.