Can you patent life?

One of the cornerstones of the free enterprise system are the patent laws. If you invent or innovate something new or improved you are able to reap financial rewards for a specified period of time. You are able to license your product and collect royalties. If some one steals your unique product, you have legal recourse to mitigate damages. Part of the cost of a product to the consumer is often either that royalty to the patent holder or a premium price to help defray the research and development costs incurred in the creation of a new or improved product. Of course this is all old news . For the most part (except for a few glitches here and there) the system has worked fairly well. But in the last few years companies like Monsanto and others have begun patenting life. So how can you patent a living thing?

Starting in the last half of the 20th century the use of bio-engineered crops that are resistant to herbicides have revolutionized farming. Even though the newly developed strains are more expensive to buy, they cost less to cultivate. Why weed your field when you can spray with herbicide and kill everything accept the crop. So what's the problem? Accidental cross pollination  puts the patented genes in your neighbor's crop and now he is technically stealing those (albeit accidentally) those super plants. That 's when the legal hilarity ensues. 

There was a case a few years ago involving Indian rice farmers. They grow a type of rice called Basmati. Many consider this to be the Rolls Royce of rice. It is long grained, fragrant and has a delicate flavor. The farmers in India have selectively cultivating this rice for centuries. Each year they have been saving the best seeds with the most desirable characteristics. All was well until a Texas company bio engineered a similar rice. They applied for and received a patent for all Basmati type rice. By treaty the farmers in India would have to had to pay royalties  to the Texas company to grow rice that they themselves developed 500 years ago. Of course that probably would have ruined the typical farmer in India. After a bit of legal wrangling the situation was sorted out. But it raises a few sobering questions about our food supply for the future.

Do we really want huge multinational corporations controlling our food supplies? Is it possible that a perfectly sound business decision at the boardroom level cause a famine halfway around the world? Is there such a thing as a benign monopoly? Can we trust a for profit corporation to do the right thing if it adversely affects the bottom line or the price of stock? How safe is our food supply if everybody is growing the same variety of grain from the same genetic stock and it becomes susceptible to some blight or pest? (Can you say Irish potato famine) 

Sign me:

Nervously stocking up for next famine in Dayton.

Emoose out