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ETC Group
News Release
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
www.etcgroup.org

Gene Giants Grab "Climate Genes"
Amid Global Food Crisis, Biotech Companies are Exposed as
Climate Change Profiteers


A report released today by Canadian-based civil society organization,
ETC Group, reveals that the world's largest seed and agrochemical
corporations are stockpiling hundreds of monopoly patents on genes in
plants that the companies will market as crops genetically engineered
to withstand environmental stresses associated with climate change -
including drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils, and more. ETC
Group's report warns that - rather than a solution for confronting
climate change - the promise of so-called "climate-ready" crops will
be used to drive farmers and governments onto a proprietary biotech
platform.

"In the face of climate chaos and a deepening world food crisis, the
Gene Giants are gearing up for a PR offensive to re-brand themselves
as climate saviours," says Hope Shand, Research Director of ETC Group.
"The companies hope to convince governments and reluctant consumers
that genetic engineering is the essential adaptation strategy to
insure agricultural productivity. Monopoly control of crop genes is a
bad idea under any circumstances - but during a global food emergency
with climate change looming - it's unacceptable and must be challenged."

According to ETC Group's report, Patenting "Climate Genes"...And
Capturing the Climate Agenda, Monsanto, BASF, DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer
and Dow - along with biotech partners such as Mendel, Ceres, Evogene
and more - have filed 532 patent documents on genes related to
environmental stress tolerance at patent offices around the world. A
list of 55 patent families (subsuming the 532 patent grants and
applications) is appended to the report.

"The emphasis on genetically engineered, so-called 'climate-ready'
crops will divert resources from affordable, decentralized approaches
to cope with changing climate. Patents will concentrate corporate
power, drive up costs, inhibit independent research and further
undermine the rights of farmers to save and exchange seeds," explains
Shand. "Globally, the top 10 seed corporations already control 57% of
commercial seed sales. This is a bid to capture as much of the rest of
the market as possible."

ETC Group calls on governments at the UN Biodiversity Convention (CBD)
in Bonn, Germany (May 12-30) to suspend immediately all patents on so-
called "climate ready" crop genes and traits. We also call for a full
investigation, including the social and environmental impacts of these
new, un-tested varieties. Further, governments meeting in Bonn should
identify and eliminate policies such as restrictive seed laws,
intellectual property regimes, contracts and trade agreements that are
barriers to farmer plant breeding, seed-saving and exchange. "The
world has already recognized that we are in a food crisis and a
climate 'state of emergency,'" notes Pat Mooney, ETC Group's Executive
Director. "In this 'state of emergency' farmers must be given all the
freedom and resources they need to get us through this crisis," Mooney
adds.

According to ETC Group, many of the patent claims are unprecedented in
scope because a single patent may claim several different
environmental (abiotic) stress traits. In addition, some patent claims
extend not just to abiotic stress tolerance in a single engineered
plant species - but also to a substantially similar genetic sequence
in virtually all engineered food crops. The corporate grab extends
beyond the U.S. and Europe. Patent offices in major food producing
countries such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico
and South Africa are also swamped with patent filings. Monsanto (the
world's largest seed company) and BASF (the world's largest chemical
firm) have entered into a colossal $1.5 billion partnership to
engineer stress tolerant plants. "Together," adds Kathy Jo Wetter of
ETC Group, "the two companies account for nearly half of the patent
families related to engineered stress tolerance identified by ETC
Group. If we include their smaller biotech partners like Ceres and
Mendel, Monsanto and BASF have a part in almost two-thirds of the so-
called 'climate-ready' germplasm."

"Technological silver bullets - especially patented ones - will not
provide the adaptation strategies that small farmers need to survive
in the face of climate change," says ETC Group's Jim Thomas. Climate
scientists predict that marginalized farming communities in the global
South - those who have contributed least to global greenhouse
emissions - are among the most severely threatened by climate chaos
created by the world's richest countries.

"The South is already being trampled by the North's super-sized carbon
footprint. Will farming communities now be stampeded by the Gene
Giants' climate change profiteering?" asks Thomas.

For the Gene Giants, the focus on "climate genes" is a golden
opportunity to push genetically engineered crops as "green" and
climate-friendly. Biotech seeds will no longer be marketed as a
choice, but as a necessity. Given the state of emergency in food and
agriculture, governments will be pressured to overlook biosafety
regulations and to accept dangerous technologies such as Terminator
that have been rejected by the international community. (Despite a
U.N. moratorium on Terminator seeds, the biotech industry argues that
genetic seed sterilization will make biotech crops safer by containing
gene flow from engineered crops and trees.)

"There's a danger that governments will give corporate Gene Giants
carte blanche to use genetically engineered, 'climate-ready'
Terminator seeds as the best shot and last resort for surviving
climate change," adds ETC's Kathy Jo Wetter, "rather than fund
alternative research that supports breeding work with under-utilized
crops, and encourage farm-based conservation, breeding and exchange of
germplasm."

The Secretary-General of the United Nations hopes to have a
comprehensive plan to tackle the global food crisis by the beginning
of June when an emergency meeting of prime ministers, agriculture
ministers, and the heads of major agencies will meet in Rome June
3-5. Pat Mooney of ETC Group points out that indigenous and local
farming communities have developed, managed and conserved crop
diversity for generations. "Farmers' leadership in developing
strategies for climate change survival and adaptation must be
recognized, strengthened and protected by governments," said Mooney,
who will be attending the conference.

Note to editors: United Nations meetings include the Ninth Conference
of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (12-30 May)
in Bonn, Germany followed by the UN and FAO High-Level Conference on
World Food Security, Climate Change and Bioenergy in Rome (3-5 June
2008).


ETC Group's report, including a table listing over 500 patent
applications and patents (55 patent families) on climate-related genes
and traits is available here: http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=687


For further information:

Hope Shand and Kathy Jo Wetter, ETC Group (USA) hope@etcgroup.org
kjo@etcgroup.org
+1 919 960-5767 (office)
mobile: +1 919 428-3740

Jim Thomas, ETC Group (Canada) jim@etcgroup.org
+1 514 6674932 (office) or +1 514 516-5759 (mobile)

Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group (Mexico) silvia@etcgroup.org
+52 5555 6326 64

Pat Mooney, ETC Group (Ottawa, Canada) etc@etcgroup.org
+1 613 241-2267
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