Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 08:12:27 +0000
Subject: Re: M-G: Basmati Property Rights


At 04:18 AM 2/14/98, Siddartha forwarded an item that 

       Basmati rice has been patented in the United States.


This technical item is not trivial. One does not have to be a food aesthete
to resent the loss of a feeling that while eating a food, you share in,
respect, and enjoy the human and geographical associations of the food. It
brings to mind the phrase in the Manifesto, "all that is holy is profaned".
Not quite holy, but certainly worthy of respect.

But if I understand the claim of the US company correctly, this concrete
news item illustrates the world-wide battle over "intellectual property
rights". This is one of the major ways the imperialist nations are
asserting their domination over other countries and continuing to extract
excess surplus value. It is highly technical and extremely difficult to
bring into the political arena. The item that Siddartha spotted, on the
surface appears merely as rivalry among purveyors of gourmet food,
similarly to the French objecting the "champagne" being grown outside France.

In the world trade forums the imperialist nations have had major successes
in enforcing their version of "intellectual property rights" on other
countries and have made much of the pirating of tapes and CD's. 

The New Scientist (UK) has in its latest 14th Feb edition a highly relevant
item "Biopirates hijack the world's crops". Unfortunately I cannot get my
scanner to work on it this morning.

Interestingly the expose is on two Australian government agencies, members
of a minor imperialist nation. Last year they borrowed samples of two
species of chick peas grown by subsistence farmers in India and Iran from
an international gene bank in Hyderabad. 

When tested, the Australian agencies realised they grew stronger and taller
pods than commercial varieties. So they applied to the Australian
government's Plant Breeders Rights Office for intellectual propoerty rights
on the two chickpeas. They courteously gave them Urdu names: Sona, meaning
gold, and Heera, meaning diamond, but the effect of their application would
prevent anyone else from marketing them. 

But as the subsistence farmers of India and Iran would not have the capital
to market any of their plants, what could be fairer than that?

But one Farhad Mazhar from the South Asian Network on Food, Ecology and
Culture, denounced these innocent scientific and commercial endeavours,
necessary for the widespread propagation of these superior forms of chick
pea, as "blatant biopiracy".

The Hyderabad gene bank now intends to complain to a meeting of 150
governments in Rome in June.

There is supposed to be a watertight UN regime for protecting the 11 large
agricultural gene banks around the world. Unfortunately it is overseen by
an intergovernmental agency, CGIAR, which is based at the World Bank. One
of the other gene banks, in Syria, has admitted signing agreements with
Australian research institutes allowing them to claim rights over seeds as
they as they gain approval from the countries of origin.

And perhaps an agreement with a monor imperialist power, is better than
being forced into agreements with a major imperialist power.

It sounds as if progressive groups in Australia are on to this case and
have kicked up quite a noise about it. I recommend that Siddartha or others
see if they can get access to this copy of the New Scientist for 14th
February. Otherwise I will try to master my scanner again. 

The good news is that some people seem to be beginning to get a handle on
this very difficult and technical area.

I hope marxism space can start to follow the debate and contribute to it.
Any other ideas?

Chris Burford

London.



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