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Monsanto Terminates Terminator?
... or is the "Monster" just taking its own sterility strategy underground?
Get Ready for Terminator II - the "T'nT" of agriculture
RAFI News Release
11 December 1998
Rural Advancement Foundation International
http://www.rafi.org
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Rural advocacy organizations learned today that Monsanto, arguably the
world's least popular biotech multinational, held a high-level meeting
yesterday to consider whether or not to abandon its quest for an exclusive
license on the Terminator technology - US patent no. 5,723,765 - which its
subsidiary, Delta & Pine Land Co., co-owns with the US Department of
Agriculture (USDA)* The patent covers a system for genetically engineering
suicide "seeds" that cannot be replanted, thus forcing farmers to return to
the commercial seed market every year. Philip Angell, Director of
Monsanto's Corporate Communications, confirmed that Monsanto held a meeting
to discuss Terminator yesterday and that Monsanto's President, Bob Shapiro,
attended. Angell declined to offer details, but he told RAFI that "it's an
issue we have to wrestle with."

The news came, appropriately enough, amid the 50th anniversary celebrations
for the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights. "If Monsanto is
backing down on Terminator," says Rene Salazar of the Philippines, "it is a
great day for Farmers' Rights and the right of farmers to save and exchange
seeds." Salazar chairs the Community Biodiversity Development and
Conservation Programme (CBDC) a 15-country consortium of rural
organizations devoted to farmer-based plant breeding.

Terminator II: Pat Mooney, RAFI's Executive Director, says that RAFI also
heard from an informed US Department of Agriculture (USDA) official that
the company might have an alternative strategy in the works. Monsanto may
choose to avoid negative publicity by giving up its high-profile
association with the Terminator patent, and instead conduct in-house
research on a second-generation variation of the suicide seed.
"Unfortunately, this isn't goodbye to Terminator, it's probably hasta la
vista," explains Mooney, "It's likely that Monsanto's research on genetic
seed sterilization will move under-ground where it can be conducted away
from public scrutiny and negative publicity." Mooney adds, "After all, this
is a technology that is still in the early stages of development, why
invite more negative publicity when its still some years away from
commercialization?"

Trick or Treat?: "In recent weeks, Monsanto has come under increasing
fire, especially from India's farmers, to abandon the Terminator patent,"
RAFI's Research Director, Hope Shand reports. "Not surprisingly," Shand
says, "Monsanto has been trying to disassociate itself with the highly
unpopular Terminator technology." On 3 December Shand told a United Nations
biotechnology conference in Vienna that Terminator Technology poses an
enormous threat to world food security and to Farmers' Rights. When
Monsanto's spokesperson, Carlos Joly, followed her to the podium, he didn't
say a word to defend the technology. "Participants were very surprised,"
Shand comments. "Monsanto's silence adds fuel to the rumours that the
company sees Terminator technology as a public relations disaster and it
wants to get out of the crosshairs."

The Terminator technology was developed jointly by the USDA and Delta and
Pine Land Company, a Mississippi-based seed company. Two months after the
patent was awarded to both parties, Monsanto offered to buy Delta and Pine
Land for $1.8 billion. In late-September RAFI learned that the Monsanto
subsidiary had entered into negotiations with USDA to obtain exclusive
rights to the Terminator patent. In response, RAFI launched an
international e-mail campaign that has resulted in more than 3500 letters
of protest from 60 countries to US Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman.
The campaign calls on USDA to cease negotiations with Monsanto, abandon
research on Terminator and withdraw patent applications on the technology
that are pending in 87 foreign countries.

Worldwide, there's an avalanche of public opposition to the Terminator
technology, and there's no question that Monsanto and USDA are feeling the
heat. "Monsanto could kill two birds with one stone," says Shand, " by
publicly suspending or ending the USDA negotiations while pursuing
Terminator II."

Terminator and Trait-er - the T'nT Generation? According to Pat Mooney,
every major seed and agrochemical corporation has been pouring over the
original Terminator claim ever since the patent was published last March.
"Terminator is not a single patent but a technology," Mooney maintains, "It
demonstrates that an external chemical can be used to activate or
de-activate genetic traits in plants. Obviously, the most profitable trait
for the company to control is the plant's ability to reproduce itself. But
there are others."

As described in the patent, Terminator seeds are soaked in tetracycline, a
common antibiotic, before being sold. Tetracycline is the chemical that
activates a molecular switch; it sets in motion a genetic chain reaction
that ultimately instructs the plant to kill its own seeds. Life industry
companies, that sell both seeds and pesticides, are anxious to develop more
sophisticated versions of the Terminator technology. Once perfected, they
may have the technology in hand to control a range of genetic traits that
can be switched on and off with chemical inducers. Commercially, companies
would prefer to "trigger" the suicide sequence with a proprietary
pesticide. In this way, life industry companies can shift the costs to the
farmer while increasing chemical sales. "In order to shift the burden to
the farmer successfully," Pat Mooney concludes, "companies will have to
build in traits farmers either need to activate - or de-activate - in order
to have a good harvest." Would companies go so far as to introduce
negative - or "traitor" - genes in order to sell seeds and chemicals? "The
Terminator is a negative trait," Mooney points out, "It's a
genetically-engineered seed defect that prevents plants from reproducing.
It has zero agronomic value but companies are already trying to convince
farmers its good for food production. Terminator II will be the Terminator
plus Traitor gene sequences - the T'nT of agriculture," predicts Mooney.

Terminating the Terminator: RAFI,the international rural advocacy
organization that first disclosed and named the "Terminator" patent, will
continue its campaign. "We are calling upon the US Government not to
relinquish the patent to Monsanto," Shand says, "We want the Patent Office
to review the original claim and to ban the patent on the grounds that it
is contrary to public morality." RAFI is contacting government officials
and civil society organizations in the 87 countries where the Terminator
patent is pending to ask them to reject the patent by invoking the legal
mechanism of "ordre public."

"When patent offices invoke ordre public, they not only reject the specific
claim they also reject the whole technology and its use by anyone within
their borders," Pat Mooney points out. RAFI also wants international
regulatory agencies to rule that the Terminator can't be sold as "seed"
since, as Mooney argues, "It is 'damaged goods'. It's defective... the
opposite of what a seed is - something that can reproduce itself from
generation to generation."

Hope Shand offers another concern, "Monsanto has made itself the target but
there is a similar patent granted to Zeneca BioSciences in the UK." That
patent was dubbed the "Verminator" by RAFI because the seed sterility
technique is promoted with a "fat rat" gene. "Every major life industry
corporation hopes to develop its own version of suicide seeds in the coming
years," explains Shand, "Engineering seed sterility is a logical goal for
the multinational seed industry because around three-quarters of the
world's farmers routinely save seed from their harvest for re-planting,"
says Shand.

A handful of multinationals are racing to dominate the "Life Industry."
Zeneca is proposing to merge with Sweden's Astra to create AstraZeneca -
possibly the third largest life industry company. Hoechst and
Rhone-Poulenc are also merging and they could be the largest of all in this
field. Novartis, DuPont and Monsanto will likely respond to these
mega-mergers by creating more and bigger alliances. "Together, these five
account for virtually one hundred per cent of the global transgenic seed
market," explains Mooney. "They aren't about to abandon a profitable
monopoly opportunity like Terminator. If Monsanto does what rumours suggest
- and low-keys the Terminator," Mooney concludes, "we can take heart in
knowing that the Terminator can be terminated. We can win this fight. But
the battle is far from over."

If the rumours are correct, the December 10th Monsanto meeting date is
especially significant for Civil Society Organizations because it comes on
the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights. On
Human Rights Day two years ago, the US Government abandoned its intensely
controversial patent on a cell line containing unmodified DNA from a
Hagahai man from Papua New Guinea. RAFI brought the patent to world
attention and campaigned successfully against it. "Let's hope this becomes
an annual tradition," Rene Salazar says.

Civil society organizations around the world are reacting strongly to
recent news about the Terminator:

Camila Montecinos of Chile, the Latin American corrdinator for the CBDC
comments, "The Terminator or T'nT technology is a way for biotech breeders
to reduce costs, increase control, and guarantee monopoly sales. The only
way to stop it is for governments to refuse the whole technology."

In Harare, Zimbabwe, the CBDC's African coordinator agrees, "We have seen
how the biotech multinationals manipulate public opinion here in Africa,
Andrew Mushita of CommuTech says, " and we know the fight against the
Terminator will be a long one."

From the Philippines, Neth Dano of SEARICE (Southeast Asian Regional
Institute for Community Education) adds, "Farmers here know about the
Terminator and they are telling their governments to reject the patent.
The Terminator could be the greatest threat to the well-being of poor
farmers that we have ever faced." SEARICE holds the regional coordination
for CBDC in Southeast Asia.

From Bangladesh, Farhad Mazhar of UBINIG is equally alarmed, "There are
1.4 billion poor people who depend upon the ability to save seed for their
food security," Mazhar says, "Most of these people are in South Asia -
exactly where the Terminator's inventors have said they want to introduce
the technology. Fighting against the Terminator is fighting for life
itself."

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Note:
* Monsanto's takeover of Delta & Pine Land was approved by the company's
shareholders on 30 November 1998 in Memphis, Tennessee (USA). The US
Federal Trade Commission, a US regulatory body, is expected to give final
legal approval soon.