Scientists against life form patents

GLOBAL civil society organisations and independent scientists have voiced their concerns over patenting knowledge designed for combating the impact of climate change in agriculture, reports financialexpress.com.

Claiming that such patent rights would make the seeds costlier and would not allow poor farmers to fight the onslaught of climate change, Pat Roy Mooney told an international conference on food security and climate in Delhi: "There are ample local seeds of different crops resistant drought, salinity and water logging. If these traits are used to develop new seeds and patent rights are extended over them, then it would amount to a situation where science has no social responsibility for combating climate change."

He said around 532 applications have been filed in patent offices across the world for patent rights over the knowledge designed to combat the impact of climate change in agriculture. These patent rights have been claimed by leading multinational companies including BASF, Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer. Swaminathan Research Foundation has also claimed process patent rights over three varieties of rice and one on mango, he said.

Mae Won Ho, the director of the UK-based Institute of Science in Society, said that patenting of genes should not be allowed because it is possible that one DNA has many functions and several DNAs have the same function. “This is a nature’s gift and should not be patented,” she added.