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Biodiversity and Democracy

Old Paradigm

The old paradigm was a battle between civil society (us) and the food industry (them).  On both sides were agricultural scientists, playing an active role in both advocacy, and practical matters like plant breeding and food science.

I think many people are still thinking in this way, but the situation has become a lot more complex in the last few years.  I posted the other day about the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), which is the privatization of biodiversity.  This has really changed the playing field quite a bit.

New paradigm

The new paradigm looks something like this.  Agricultural scientists no longer work on behalf of the food industry or civil society, but rather via the social studies academics.

I have posted before about the mechanism of fake news.  Beyond fake news, the academics in this paradigm are actually involved in rewriting history as well as designing future societies for us to live in.  Here in the Netherlands for example is the International Institute of Social Studies (http://iss.nl) in The Hague, and the associated publication The Journal of Peasant Studies.  They continue to be active in a very distorted version of Dutch history, especially surrounding WWII, and they promote a very racist version of Dutch society in which only white Dutch people are entitled to make decisions and have valid opinions.  They are actively researching and analyzing culture and traditions surrounding traditional agriculture, and are working to impose their own version of this on society at large.

Social studies academics and wealthy families have been working in the background for a number of years, taking over civil society organizations like The Seed Savers Exchange in the US, activist organizations in Europe and elsewhere like Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, even creating new organizations like Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI).  Their goal is to make it impossible for any independent organization to exist that might challenge their goals.  Backing them is the unlimited funding of the world’s wealthiest 1%.

One of the most common type of NGO I encounter is one that claims to have a particular goal, but in fact is working in the opposite direction.  For example, recently I posted about fake news and mentioned a US organization from the 1980’s called Partnership for a Drug Free America.  While they claimed to be against drugs, this wasn’t true.  In fact we now know they were funded by the tobacco and alcohol companies, and their goal was to get young people to stop using illegal drugs and instead use legal ones.

One organization like this is Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO, http://corporateeurope.org/) whose stated goal is “is a research and campaign group working to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making.”  You can imagine what the opposite of this is.  In fact they are a well funded organization that offers their services to the highest bidder.  Financial disclosures on the Internet suggest they turnover about €5 million per year, and this clearly isn’t helping society at large.  In fact much of this money goes into lobby efforts which support Europe’s wealthy families, as well as NGOs like Greenpeace which promote a very perverse sense of what’s normal in society.  By having such a stated goal, and virtually unlimited funds, they can keep out any organization that may truly have these goals.  They also have access to politicians ostensibly to lobby for their stated goal, but behind the scenes they can have private meetings with politicians where different ideas are expressed.

Because the social studies academics have virtually unlimited funds, in fact they and some of their partner organizations and groups are employers and other sources of funding for many well intentioned activists and others who work with biodiversity.  Actually, I hardly know anyone working in biodiversity who isn’t financially dependent on this part of the new paradigm.

What’s also happening is things are going wrong at many levels.  I mentioned some of these in my recent post on CBD.  Until recently many of the social studies academics and wealthy families were working quietly behind the scenes.  Because things are going wrong, many of them are coming out in a more visible way, in order to take charge and try to get things working again.

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Fake News: No Patents on Seeds

Patents are a controversial topic these days.  While I don’t think many people would argue it’s a good thing for an inventor to be able to protect their invention, modern patent law has gone far beyond this.  For one thing, most ordinary people don’t have the economic resources or business connections to effectively patent, legally defend and sell their inventions.  In addition small companies are very vulnerable to the lawsuits that come from patents, and the legal costs that ensue.

With the duration of patents recently extended to 20 years, and changes in patent law that make many more patents possible then ever before, patents are increasingly becoming a tool for wealthy individuals to increase their wealth and dominance over society.

An important issue used to be the common good, and this was one of the arguments for limiting patents to 10 years.   Afterwards the patent would fall into the public domain.  This idea is increasingly being sidelined, and patent holders supported by governments have increasing power to remove unpatented products from the market or exclude them from supply chains.

Background on Seeds in Europe

It’s different in different places in the world, but in Europe patents on seeds were introduced by the biotechnology directive of 1998.  This was after several years of debating, and a failed directive 10 years earlier.  This was also in the wake of GMOs being released into the environment in North America, and Monsanto suing farmers with contaminated fields claiming they were violating their patents.  Most famously was Percy Schmeiser in Canada who won his legal battle with Monsanto.

Among the controversies in Europe was the idea that genes which exist in nature should be patentable, just by virtue of isolating them.  This would not seem to be an invention, which is what patents are supposed to be about.

Unlike North America, in Europe conventionally bred seeds were explicitly excluded from patents, or so they thought.  Also in Europe, there was so much controversy surrounding the issue, there were agreements put in place effectively locking the dossier at the European Commission, and there is now a great deal of reluctance to reopen this dossier.

Supposedly this wasn’t something the food industry wanted, but rather was forced on them by the pharmaceutical industry.  A claim like this is very hard to verify, and depends on knowing the contents of private conversations between company executives.  Did one industry force it on another, or was there collusion?  It’s certainly convenient plausible deniability.

Near Diplomatic Immunity

One of the most undemocratic things about the patent issues is the way it’s been implemented.  It was implemented after a great deal of public protest, then with a closed dossier.  Now the patents are issued by an independent institution, located in Switzerland outside of the EU, in a building that effectively has a form of diplomatic immunity.   Apparently even the police need permission to enter the building.  The reason for this legal-political construction was to prevent ‘political interference’ in the issuing of patents.

This effectively puts the issue of patents outside of both EU and Swiss laws.  The issuing of patents is at the convenience of those applying, and the institution is largely self regulating.

The Mistake

In the midst of all this political wrangling, a mistake was made.  As it turns out, patents on conventionally bred seeds were not excluded as originally intended.  There was a small mistake in the original wording of the law, and this has resulted in scores of patents being unintentionally issued.  It’s been in the news; patents on potatoes, lettuce,  broccoli, tomatoes or peppers.

Now this mistake is buried deep inside this directive, which has been been closed and locked by the EU commission, and the patents are being issued within the legal-political construction that was intended to prevent ‘political interference’.

The Winners and Losers

Anyone who breeds fruits and vegetables are certainly the biggest losers.  This creates a situation where breeding techniques and well as entire ranges of fruits and vegetables might suddenly become a priority, because their company owns the patent, or something to be avoided because a competitor owns the patent.  It means any breeders have to pay attention to all the individual genes and traits their plants might have, in order to consider what patents might exist on these.

If you’re an independent plant breeder, this really has the potential to put you out of business.  It will be very difficult to avoid all the patents controlled by the larger players.

Most countries in Europe with commercial plant breeding activities have passed local legislation setting aside patents on conventionally bred products.  This means for the time being breeding activities can continue in these countries.  The problem will come in the marketing of these fruits and vegetables in other countries where local legislation hasn’t been changed.

Are there winners?  Probably consumers are winners to some extent.  A messed up system of patents means the food companies will have a harder time using patents to their advantage.

No Patents on Seeds

Along comes the food industry, in this case primarily meaning Monsanto because they owned most of the seed companies at that point.  They start a campaign, with a lot of resemblance to campaigns run around the time of the introduction of patents on plants and seeds in Europe.  They setup a website, run a marketing campaign in The Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, then collect many signatures on a petition for the purpose of getting rid of patents on seeds.  The name of this campaign is ‘No Patents on Seeds’.

Almost as soon as it began, but after they collected the bulk of the signatures, they announced they were going to work initially on just patents on conventionally bred plants and seeds.

In other words, they’ve turned a popular campaign for getting rid of patents on living plants and animals, and their genes, into a food industry campaign to fix the system of biotechnology patents in Europe to their advantage.

This campaign seems to have a virtually unlimited budget.  Not only are they sponsoring 30 minute TV infomercials in the Netherlands, but they have a large number of staff, in several countries, working directly and indirectly on the campaign.  It’s clear a number of organizations who put their name behind the campaign did so because they were paid.

There’s no money for a competing campaign, and for example this blog is the effort of a single person who’s own costs aren’t even paid.

I’m not aware of a single person supporting this campaign who didn’t either sign the online petition at the time it was promoting a complete end to patents on seeds, or doesn’t have a financial relationship with the organizers of the campaign.   As far as I can tell it’s completely paid for by the food industry.

The Importance of GMOs

It might be easy to dismiss GMOs as unimportant with respect to patents.  For example in Europe they are not completely prohibited, but very restricted and not common.  It might be tempting to believe an end to patents on conventionally bred plants and animals might be good enough.

In fact there are many reasons why this is not true.  With GMOs there are many gray areas.  There are a number of techniques being considered by the EU Commission now as possibly being exempt from classification as GMO.  In addition non-food items, for example bio-plastic packaging, can legally be sold in Europe as GMOs.  If these techniques and crops can be patented, there will be very strong commercial reasons why consumers can’t object to them and there may be the same environmental health consequences as GMOs in our food.

In addition, while as a consumer I insist on the right not to have GMOs forced into supply chains, and I insist on continuing to have the right to not buy GMOs if I choose, I don’t rule them out as a science.  I think in general consumers will be much more prepared to accept GMOs if they exist in the public domain and there are not strong commercial pressures behind them.  I think in the future there may be important reasons why GMOs may be used, and patents shouldn’t interfere with this any more than they should interfere with conventional breeding now.

The End of Plausible Deniability

I guess we’re all lucky one of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies just bought the worlds largest agriculture company.  Now that the Bayer-Monsanto merger is a thing of the past, it’s a lot harder to say patents on seeds are being imposed on the food industry by the pharmaceutical industry.  Now it’s very realistic to expect the two industries to view it as a common issue.

The Real Solution

The solution is not to fix a broken system of patents on life.  The solution is for the food industry to convince us that patents on life are necessary and beneficial to the consumer, and if not then cooperate with reopening the biotechnology dossier at the EU Commission, for the purpose of ending all patents on living organisms or their genes.

If the food and pharmaceutical industries do not find this an acceptable solution, then the proper thing to do is negotiate a solution that also provides other real benefits to the common good.  In order to move forward with this, the fake news campaign has to stop.

It’s my hope this issue provokes a larger debate on patents.

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SEED ACT

SEED ACT Film crowdfunding – What we’ve done so far! Support this film! from Liquen on Vimeo.

The documentary SEED ACT tells a story through the lives and actions of people that everyday endeavour to preserve and defend our bio-cultural heritage – our farm seeds. Wandering at the edges of society in several European countries, told in at least 5 languages, this film opens a window onto the threats that seeds and their guardians face and on the ways to counter the assault, through inspired and collaborative work that is rooted in Nature and in the respect for life.

SEED ACT is more than a film, it is the testimony of people that are actively engaged in the defence of food and seed sovereignty and that have united to tell this story. It is also intended to be a tool for awareness raising and an inspiration for civic engagement. As such, we will make it available online in chapter format (separate acts) and offer it to groups that are active in food and seed sovereignty advocacy.

In order to finish the film, we have launched a crowdfunding campaign on a platform for independent projects – Indiegogo. This way we hope to raise 15.000 euros, half of what we estimate the film will cost us in these last phases of editing, launching and promoting. The funds will allow us to acquire the necessary equipment and hire professionals for video and sound editing, a task that could take as long as 3 months full-time. Until now we have managed to rely on volunteers, who have each given several days of their services and even lent us their equipment, but for such an intensive and longer term phase we can’t expect professionals to work for free.

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Sugar, Salt, Saturated Fat and the War Against Small Farmers

It’s in the news again.  The three evil foods; salt, sugar and saturated fat.  As if these were really foods in the first place.   We all know we are supposed to be distracted from caring about the quality of our foods, if it’s natural and if it comes from a trustworthy place, by focusing on the ingredient label for a look at it’s component parts.  The reason of course is that food companies don’t want to fundamentally change the way they produce food, to make it more natural or healthy.  Processing food a different way is however no problem, and generating consumer demand based on the ingredient list means they can just keep making small changes to their formulas, and make more processed foods to meet these demands.

A few months ago the EFSA declared aspartame safe, the chemical name for the NutraSweet sweetener.  A few minutes searching on Google will show all manner of scientific studies (like a recent one in Italy that proved it can cause cancer) or that it’s approval in the US was seriously procedurally flawed and was never proven safe, or places like New Mexico and Hawaii that have also proposed bans.  There are numerous people on the Internet complaining of serious medical problems linked to it’s consumption.  The EFSA however could find no evidence that it was unhealthy.

Aspartame is also a product of genetic engineering.  It’s not itself genetically engineered, but it’s produced with genetically engineered micro-organisms.

And the reason why sugar, salt and saturated fat are all unhealthy?  Yes, anyone??  Any credible scientific studies or even a reasonable explanation?  I personally have not seen any.

Now however, our attention is on salt, sugar and saturated fat.  One of the recent people to declare these ingredients bad was Oliver de Schutter in a recent report to the UN.  Worse than tobacco he says!  Until recently, de Schutter was one of the loudest proponents for small farmers, but if he wanted to pick three ingredients to more directly attack small farmers could he have done better?

Saturated Fat:  This is in almost all unprocessed animal products.  It’s more or less a naturally occurring byproduct of the meat and dairy industry.  It’s only by processing the dairy or meat in ways not normally done by small farmers that this is removed.  ‘Tropical oils’, like coconut and palm kernel oils are the only other major source of saturated fats, and these are a pretty small part of most people’s diets.

Not only is there not a lot of proof saturated fat is linked to health issues, but you will really only find it in unprocessed meat and dairy products, like would be produced by a small farmer.

Salt:  This or sugar are used in almost all traditional processing of food.  All pickled or fermented products (like sauerkraut), most cured meats and almost all cheese, require salt in their processing.  Other foods, like breads or potatoes, depend on salt for flavor.

Sugar:  If anything, modest consumption of sugar may be important for health.  For example, it’s known as an appetite suppressant.  For traditionally and naturally processed foods like jams or jellies, not using enough sugar can result in a runnier product with a shorter shelf life.

To declare these ingredients bad is to attack small farmers, plain and simple.  If you don’t eat salt, sugar and saturated fat, that means eating mass produced industrial foods.

Use your common sense.  Is aspartame healthier for you than sugar?!  We need to simply reject this sort of argument for our food, and punish any politicians who support it.  If overwhelming evidence that the safety of aspartame is uncertain is not enough, then empty claims over sugar, salt and saturated fat are not enough either.

One example of this manipulation at my local supermarket is with potato chips.  We are all supposed to think potato chips are bad, because they are salty and well just junk.  Right?  Actually, they are just fried potatoes.  Certainly you can buy better or worse brands, and better or worse potatoes can be used, but the principle is not a bad one.  During times when salt is supposed to be bad, my supermarket changes the formula on the house brand and increases the salt to make them almost inedible.  In this way, people who eat them in a normal way are supposed to find them too salty and look for something ‘healthier’ to eat.

In hindsight, I remember this going on in the US when I was growing up, and one of the reasons most Americans think of potato chips as a ‘bad’ food.

It’s time to return potato chips to something made by people we trust, that don’t manipulate the salt levels.

No more attacks on small farmers.  No more rules for school lunches that force kids to eat processed and mass produced foods.  No more reasons that kids (or anyone else) should be encouraged to eat dangerous chemicals like aspartame.