Patents: Destructive Agriculture

The dark side of patents in agriculture

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An aside:

While I was writing this article on patents, an uplifting post from Gary Moller landed in my in-box. Breaking! - NZ First Does Not Support The Gene Therapies Bill!

If you click on the link above, you can listen to Shane Jones deliver the good news.

I’d like to thank everyone who’s been writing letters to members of parliament and spreading the word. We now have some more time. I’d like to echo Gary’s words and thank NZ First.

Dr Guy Hatchard this evening also posted on NZ First’s stance and linked to Gary Mollers post. Guy said:

This is a step in the right direction, but not enough. No doubt the Health Select Committee has postponed any announcement on the Gene Technology Bill because the National Party and ACT are scrambling to come up with a version of the Bill which NZ First will support. Therefore more needs to be done to educate the party. The pandemic should have taught us that there are no adequate safeguards. Genetic modification which cannot be contained, recalled or remediated. We need to contact NZ First MPs to thank them but also to reiterate the dangers and pitfalls.

Although safety is the main issue, ownership rights is another major aspect that many people, and likely many MPs are not fully aware of. Hopefully below, you will find useful information about patents to help in the push back against GMOs.

Introduction

Stephen Kinsella, a patent attorney in Houston, wrote in his Brownstone Article Patents, Pharma, Government: The Unholy Alliance:

I’ve argued for three decades that patent and copyright law are fundamentally destructive of human life and liberty and should be abolished. This is despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that I have been a practicing patent attorney for…about thirty years. Nothing I’ve seen in my decades of practice has indicated otherwise.

Much of what is wrong in the world today has a patent association.

The deregulation of broad categories of gene technology is being ruthlessly promoted by politicians in many places around the world. These countries have obviously been influenced by the same industry players and playbook. Much like with Covid 19 and the 'vaccine', the public are being fed a lot of unsubstantiated claims and hollow promises.

And in Is Intellectual Property the Root of All Evil, economist Dean Baker made the following points. Many items would be free or nearly free if they weren't patent protected. In effect, patents redistribute income upwards. In other words, patent laws, which are government-made laws, have the effect of increasing inequality. Many of the richest people would not have amassed fortunes if it were not for patents. Bill Gates was able to become incredibly wealthy because of the way patent laws are structured.

Patents create monopoly rights to control the commercial application of technology and the marketing of products.

Patents & Agriculture

Who controls the world's food supply?

For thousands of years of human agriculture, seeds were grown and resown by farmers. Seeds were freely exchanged and shared.

All that changed in the late 1900s when laws were introduced to protect new bioengineered crops.

Now, unless permission is granted by the patent holder, patented animals or plants or their traits cannot be used by other breeders, growers and farmers.

Also, major producers of genetically modified and bioengineered seeds, like Bayer and Corteva, strictly limit how farmers can use the varieties they sell. Usually, buyers must sign agreements that prohibit them from saving seeds from their crops to exchange or resow the following year.

In their report, New GE and Food Plants: The disruptive impact of patents on breeders, food production and society, Test Biotech (Institute for Independent Impact Assessment in Biotechnology) pointed out how patent holders can acquire far-reaching control over breeding and food production. For instance, patents create monopoly rights to control the commercial application of technology and marketing of products for 20 years and that extends to offspring if the patented genetic trait is present. The ongoing effect can be monstrous. Also patents on plants very often extend to the harvest and to processed foods.

Non GMO Project has a really great website on GMOs. In their section GMO Fact & Impacts, under the subheading GMOs and Patents, they clearly sum up in a short well-cited article how patents in their effect are putting at risk and destroying the integrity of our food supply, our health, our environment. GMOs are exposing us to unknown dangers.

Before GMOs, plants that could reproduce were outside the scope of patents as they were considered products of nature. However, GMOs changed all that as they were argued to be products of human ingenuity, and as such became patentable. Also under this argument, restrictive utility patents were awarded to GMOs. Over time, the legal framing expanded to include some non-GMO plants.

The broadened scope of patents that evolved from gene technology are a tool being used by corporate giants to take over our food supply and much more. These giant corporations have a distinct advantage as patent law is complex and costly

Excerpts from the article:

Utility patents on seeds helped to consolidate power in the hands of big business. Independent breeders have been targeted and intimidated by patent holders who use corporate resources to fund costly legal challenges. Large companies buy or force out smaller ones. Today, more than half of the world's seeds are controlled by just four multinational corporations.

And:

As GMOs made from new genomic techniques enter the market, we face a new era of privatization in which a single company can patent and control the genetic formula and fermentation process used to create synthetic milk, protein or honey.

Should we at least keep an open mind to the possibility that this could be an underlying reason why real food producers are being driven into the ground via man-made climate change nonsense and an underlying reason why bee hives are being burnt to the ground. NO bees. NO real honey. Just fake, ultraprocessed, patentable honey. Watch this short clip from Kate Mason’s presentation: The Synthetic Transformation of our Food Systems

Will less bees help create a worldwide food shortage as bees play a vital role in pollination? If so, less bees will help drive a natural food shortage and thus, a greater market for fake GE foods.

If it weren't for patents, there would not be the insane drive to usurp nature with inferior, synthetic, and potentially harmful GMOs. And there are plenty of harms documented. Harms the Gene Technology Industry Complex doesn't want you to know about. Their rhetoric is based on rosy, unrealistic promises.

GMO Research is a comprehensive scientific database with over 2,000 studies and publications documenting the potential and actual risks, as well as harmful effects of GMOs.

As explained in this report Nothing new in New GMOs. Hoodwinked by Corporate Agenda, the deregulation of gene technology is opening up a new, huge profit potential for the biggest players of global agriculture. Companies are filing for hundreds of patents by using these new technologies to widen the possible patent pool, and further entrench their control over global food systems.

The above report also states Corveta (DowDuPont) is now the largest patent holder and license holder for CRISPR technology. And as of 2022, it had filed for over 100 international patent for these new technologies. (According to AI the figure cited now stands at 514). Bayer (Monsanto), BASF, and Syngenta are also significant patent holders in this arena. Together they have cornered the market for gene editing.

Companies are using gene editing to barely make genetic changes to a plant so they can file a patent application to close off access to it.

Gene technology agriculture and its associated patent system has enabled DowDuPont and Bayer/Monsanto to control large parts of the seed market. This has enabled them to dictate terms.

An argument put forth by the industry is that these new breeding techniques will reduce pesticide use. However, the biggest patent holders of these new technologies are also the world's largest pesticide producers. Therefore, it would be naive to think that these companies have any interest in reducing global pesticide consumption. Pest and weeds evolve to survive pesticides and herbicides.

Another argument put forth is new methods of genetic engineering are cheaper than previous techniques and could therefore be used by smaller companies. However, what the proponents of this argument fail to mention is that the processes for using tools, such as CRISPR/Cas9 and plants and animals derived thereof, can all be patented. See Patent Cartel for the Large Companies and also Gene-editing technology is owned and controlled by big corporations (Chapter 6 of Gene Editing Myths and Reality).

Prof. Jack Heinemann talks about the horrendous costs associated with utility patents in this RCR interview here. The segment on this was captured in a clip, copied below for convenience, from the previous Flag N Fix article The Gene Technology Bill.

The only people making heaps of money are likely the utility patent holders of tools like CRISPR-Cas. Patents make a few people a lot of money. They feed the corporate machine. They do not serve the farmer, the grower, the consumer or the environment.

Our universities can spend heaps of time and taxpayer dollars developing a product like red apples, but then when it comes to commercialising such a product, the enormous utility patent fees (U.S.$50 million or so) would make the venture inviable.

Who will really benefit from the effects of the Gene Technology Bill? Those who hold/control the utility patents. And we will face the threat of the gradual corporate takeover of not only our food system but also all living systems. These new regulations will, in effect, result in the transfer of wealth from New Zealand to global corporations.

In other words, the deregulation of gene technology in NZ is a giant step towards our food production becoming a patent-based system for the perpetuation of corporate profit, in particular for the big agriculture giants like Bayer and Corteva. Historically, these corporations have had little or no concern for our health or environment. See Nothing New in New GMOs. Hoodwinked by Corporate Agenda.

Any government that forms public private partnerships with these companies to use tools like CRISPR in agriculture, are essentially funnelling public money into corporate hands through licensing agreements and royalties.

Mary Hobbs pointed out in her urgent open letter to all members of parliament, which was published in the Daily Telegraph NZ:

Despite our country being GE-free, the government already funds mRNA and GM companies through 17 different channels. It apparently approved Bioceres GM wheat 12 months ago. Does that sound like a vested interest to you? Jumping the gun before the Gene Technology Bill was put before parliament? Isn’t that illegal?

Also, the NZ government has formed a public-private partnerships with agribusiness companies. AgriZero was established on 1 February 2023. It is half owned by them and the other half by the NZ government. This surely creates conflicts of interest?

AgriZero has already had millions of dollars of taxpayer money.

Dr Guy Hatchard drew attention to the fact AgriZero has invested in a Bill Gates start-up company. In effect, NZ is giving money to BILL GATES. The clip on this is copied from a previous post. You can listen to the full interview here.

Quote from GE Contamination:

What a waste of taxpayers’ money! It is beyond comprehension that anyone would believe injecting cows with mRNA vaccines will help mitigate climate change! But then, if something doesn’t make sense, follow the money. Think of all the money to be made from mRNA ‘vaccines’ designed for farm animals! How many vaccinated animals will suffer from Sudden Animal Death Syndrone (SADS)?

NZ is in a unique position—we can learn from what has happened overseas. The U.S. is NOT a good example to follow. Our leaders need to look at the history of gene technology around the world and the huge problems it has created. It is NOT the answer to healthy, sustainable, regenerative agriculture—but a road to increasing sickness and ruination.

Gene technology agriculture is a failed system so why do our leaders want to embrace it? Find more examples of failures overseas on GM Watch.

There are far superior alternatives to patent-based, gene technology agriculture that are already reaping results around the world and here in NZ. But because these systems are NOT patentable, what is best for us and the planet is NOT being embraced by our leaders like the far inferior and destructive gene technology methods are. Why? I believe we would be foolish not to entertain the idea governments and leaders have been heavily influenced and hoodwinked by the industry players.

The Gene Technology Bill is about patents and profit. As Prof. Jack Heinemann of Canterbury University explains, NZ is already a top biotechnology country. Our crop yields are about as high as anywhere in the world. We don’t need GE to have greater yields. We don’t need gene technology to make drought resilient, heat tolerant, flood tolerant plants etc. We are already doing this extremely well. The problem is you cannot patent it with a utility patent.

You can listen to the entire interview here and read the associated article here.

Gene technology agriculture = unhealthy agriculture for us and our environment.

Why would our government want to entrap NZ into a patented system of agriculture where only a few people make a lot of money—and that does not include the farmers and growers? They end up earning less and less as crops fail and patent holders demand more and more. Farmers go into debt. Big Agri and co now own a great deal of farmland in America and elsewhere.