Hope Not Hype - Third World Network

Précis for Policy-Makers
1
Chapter One
Précis for Policy-Makers
Key messages
1. The modern biotechnologies coming from developed countries favour large-scale
farming of a small number of mega-crops. This range of crops does not fit the type
and purpose of farms of subsistence and poor farmers.
2. Relatively new changes in patent and patent-like plant variety protection (PVP)
intellectual property instruments influence the type of technologies dominating in
developed countries, particularly in promoting the development of genetically modified/engineered
(GM/GE) crops.
3. These same instruments create liabilities for farmers, by potentially extending
proprietary ownership to non-GM crops contaminated through transgene flow.
4. Intellectual property and some biosafety regulations create liabilities for GM farmers
and developers of GM crops, by also potentially extending proprietary ownership
to inadvertently mixed GM crops containing transgenes from different developers
and contaminated through transgene flow, and by linking damage to non-GM farmers
or consumers to transgene flow.
5. The scale of and subsidies for farming in developed countries, along with efforts
to harmonize intellectual property frameworks and protect intellectual property coming
from developed countries, combine to inhibit the development of local agriculture
markets in developing countries and have dampened research by and for local farmers.
6. The potential agronomic advantages of many GM crops are not realized by subsistence
farmers who grow a large diversity of crops in close proximity, and GM
crops make industrialized farmers and consumers vulnerable to the effects of
monocropping, environmental damage from intensification, and loss of agro- and
bio-diversity.
7. Policy options include a new emphasis on public funding of agriculture innovation
for the poor and subsistence farmer. This may include a balanced portfolio of
investment in improving agroecological methods applied at scale, farmer participatory
and extension projects, and modern biotechnology research with a commensurate
reduction in the emphasis on commercial control of products.