MONSANTO takes over staff of life in India: US,EPO award chapatis wheat patent;India:'OK!'
author: NWOfoodwatch
Monsanto, up to its bloodsucking Dracula tricks once more; It should get a good thick silver stake in the heart. Attempting to own something it had nothing to do with creating in the first place. A lie? ""This patent was Unilever's. We got it when we bought the company. Really this is all academic as we are exiting from the cereal business in the UK and Europe," said Ranjana Smetacek, Monsanto's public affairs director in India. " If I had a nickel for every time Monsanto said they were "not interested" in something, or were "withdrawing from that line of reserach," I would be a millionaire. Remember their previous lies about "oh we are stopping research on the Terminatory gene technologies as well."? Nope! Still at it.
Greenpeace is attempting to block Monsanto's patent, accusing the company of "bio-piracy".
"It is theft of the results of the work in cultivation made by Indian farmers," said Dr Christoph Then, Greenpeace's patent expert after a meeting with the European Commission in Delhi.
"We want the European Patent Office to reverse its decision. Under European law patents cannot be issued on plants that are normally cultivated, but there are loopholes in the legislation."
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Monsanto's Wheat Patent Raises Indian Ire
By Randeep Ramesh
The Guardian - UK
1-30-4
"Monsanto, activists claim, is simply out to make 'monopoly profits' from food on which millions depend... 'It is theft of the results of the work in cultivation made by Indian farmers'."
NEW DELHI -- Monsanto, the world's largest genetically modified seed company, has been awarded patents on the wheat used for making chapati - the flat bread staple of northern India.
The patents give the US multinational exclusive ownership over Nap Hal, a strain of wheat whose gene sequence makes it particularly suited to producing crisp breads.
Another patent, filed in Europe, gives Monsanto rights ***over the use [?!] of Nap Hal wheat to make chapatis***, which consist of flour, water and salt. [Er, there is something serious awry when some bureaucracy can 'give' a corporation a recipe patent. What next, patent the taste of clean water, or something? Patent salt?]
Environmentalists say Nap Hal's qualities are the result of generations of farmers in India who spent years crossbreeding crops and collective, not corporate, efforts should be recognised.
Monsanto, activists claim, is simply out to make "monopoly profits" from food on which millions depend. Monsanto inherited a patent application when it bought the cereals division of the Anglo-Dutch food giant Unilever in 1998, and the patent has been granted to the new owner.
Unilever acquired Nap Hal seeds from a publicly funded British plant gene bank. Its scientists identified the wheat's combination of genes and patented them as an "invention".
Greenpeace is attempting to block Monsanto's patent, accusing the company of "bio-piracy".
"It is theft of the results of the work in cultivation made by Indian farmers," said Dr Christoph Then, Greenpeace's patent expert after a meeting with the European Commission in Delhi.
"We want the European Patent Office to reverse its decision. Under European law patents cannot be issued on plants that are normally cultivated, but there are loopholes in the legislation."
A spokesperson for Monsanto in India denied that the company had any plan to exploit the patent, saying that it was in fact pulling out of cereals in some markets.
"This patent was Unilever's. We got it when we bought the company. Really this is all academic as we are exiting from the cereal business in the UK and Europe," said Ranjana Smetacek, Monsanto's public affairs director in India.
Campaigners in India say that there are concerns that people might end up paying royalties to Monsanto for making or selling chapatis.
"The commercial interest is that Monsanto can charge people for using the wheat or take a cut from its sale," said Devinder Sharma, who runs the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security in Delhi.
The potential market in developing countries is huge. Rice production in India alone exceeds that of the American maize market.
The number of patents relating to rice issued every year in the US has risen from less than 100 in the mid-1990s to more than 600 in 2000.
Mr Sharma says there is little hope of the Indian government intervening to prevent the chapati being patented by Monsanto.
BASMATI RICE AND THEN CHAPATIS WHEAT!
It simply cannot afford the legal fees, having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting a US decision to grant a Texan company a patent on basmati rice in 1997.
That case became a cause celebre for the anti-globalisation protests of the 1990s, and was only settled when the patent was watered down.
"The ministry of commerce [AH! THE MINISTRY OF COMMERCE!] sent a circular out last year which said that there is no money to fund these cases any more," said Mr Sharma.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,1135902,00.html
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The patents give the US multinational exclusive ownership over Nap Hal, a strain of wheat whose gene sequence makes it particularly suited to producing crisp breads.
Another patent, filed in Europe, gives Monsanto rights over the use of Nap Hal wheat to make chapatis, which consist of flour, water and salt.<
long, long ago monsanto lost all claims to bringing the benefits of genetic engineering to all of mankind, or any other "we do this for the good of humanity" crap. this story shows how monsanto has essentially become a very very large and aggressive corporation, which seeks to OWN genetics, rather than merely using genetics to benefit mankind. it's as if monsanto is using genetic engineering as a tool with which it leverages control over markets and technologies, rather than out of any concern for health, agriculture and the environment.
i wouldn't be surprised to see monsanto, or novartis or any other gm company deliberately manipulate perhaps one or two utterly inconsequential genes in almost any flora species on this earth, merely so they can then claim "ownership" over the entire species. "we manipulated this particular gene, which changes absolutely none of the characteristics of this plant, so that we can claim ownership of the entire species this plant represents." to them, it's all about market control and ownership and liscensing. it has shit do with improving life and agriculture...