Monsanto Won't Commercialize Terminator
October 19, 1999
Following 18 months of controversy and intense popular opposition
around the world, Monsanto CEO Robert B. Shapiro has advised
Gordon Conway, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, that
Monsanto is abandoning plans to commercialize Terminator technology
(a genetically engineered trait that causes crop seed to become sterile at
harvest time). However, the company says it will continue to pursue
closely related research targets that could allow Monsanto to switch on
or off other genetic traits vital to a crop's productivity. Terminator
became a public relations disaster for Monsanto when the company
made a bid to acquire Delta & Pine Land Seed Company in May 1998.
Delta & Pine Land co-owns the "prototype" Terminator patent with the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) initially
identified the patent on seed sterilization and launched a campaign in
which over 10,000 individuals from 71 countries wrote letters of protest
to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the USDA.
"Monsanto would never have abandoned the profit-generating potential
of sterile seeds just because it was an immoral technology," said
RAFI's Research Director, Hope Shand. "The company finally realized
that Terminator will never win public acceptance. Terminator has
became synonymous with corporate greed, and it was met with intense
opposition all over the world," adds Shand.
USDA is now in the shameful position of supporting and defending a
genetic technology that the world's second largest seed corporation has
clearly rejected due to public opposition. At a meeting with civil
society organizations in June, Under-Secretary of Agriculture Richard
Rominger told RAFI that USDA refuses to abandon the patent it co-
owns with Delta & Pine Land (a Mississippi-based seed company in
the process of being acquired by Monsanto) because it wants to see the
technology widely licensed.
"USDA is increasingly marginalized in its support of Terminator. It
should immediately cease negotiations with Delta & Pine Land,
abandon the patent, and develop a strict policy prohibiting use of
taxpayer funds for development of genetic seed sterilization," said
Hope Shand.
Monsanto is the second major multinational corporation to back away
from Terminator Technology. In June of this year, the UN Convention
on Biological Diversity received a letter from UK-based AstraZeneca
announcing that it would not commercialize seed sterility technologies.
In all, more than a dozen companies and public institutes have at least
31 patents that include claims involving seed sterilization.
Even though RAFI does not question Monsanto's public commitment to
abandon Terminator, the groups notes that market and technical
realities may eventually result in a different outcome. In a letter dated
February 24, 1999 AstraZeneca categorically stated that it abandoned
development of its Terminator-type technology for the purpose of seed
sterilization in 1992. RAFI discovered that ExSeed, an AstraZeneca
joint venture with Iowa State University, won a new seed sterilization
patent on August 11, 1997, based on a claim made in 1995 -- three
years after AstraZeneca's research was to have been abandoned.
"Monsanto has taken a positive step, but let's not forget that farmers
can never depend on the charity and good will of giant corporations to
reject immoral technologies," concludes Pat Mooney, executive
director of RAFI. "Without government action to firmly reject
Terminator technology, this technology will be commercialized within
a few years with potentially disastrous consequences."
Monsanto's open letter to Rockefeller is available on the company's
web site at: http://www.monsa nto.com/monsanto/gurt/default.htm
A list of private and public sector institutions who hold Terminator-
type patents; more information on Terminator technology; and an in-
depth report on Traitor technology are available on RAFI's Web site:
http://www.rafi.org. Traitor technology, once perfected, will create
seeds whose genetic traits may be turned on or off with application of a
proprietary chemical, such as an herbicide or fertilizer.
Source: RAFI press release, October 4, 1999.
Contact: RAFI, 110 Osborne St., Suite 202, Winnipeg MB R3L 1Y5
Canada; email rafi@rafi.org.
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