I'm shocked, shocked, to find out that the Chinese are stealing America's agricultural technology!
It can hardly come as a surprise that the Chinese government actively encourages and organizes the theft of intellectual property from other nations and their companies, in this case, agricultural technology in the United States. College students are some of the most active players in these thefts as between 250,000 and 300,000 routinely attend U.S. colleges and universities in any given year, most of them studying in scientific and engineering fields.
Not only is the theft of proprietary seeds an issue, but also research on and transportation of plant pathogens. No one has been accused of actively introducing pathogens into America's farm fields so far. But the combined problems of theft and possible biological attacks on crops merely lays bare the bankruptcy of the modern conventional agricultural system.
Genetically engineered seeds are by design narrowly similar in their genetic makeup. They have to be if they are going to consistently deliver the properties they are advertised to have such as immunity to certain herbicides—glyphosate comes to mind.
Seeds for genetically engineered soybeans, for example, are sold and planted around the world and this presents multiple problems. First, worldwide distribution makes such plants a systemic risk if something goes wrong. Second, lack of genetic diversity makes the plants easier targets for naturally occurring pathogens or intentional biological attacks. And third, the fact the most farmers using these engineered seeds are growing monocultures create another vulnerability that combined with the others could lead to widespread crop failures due to natural factors or intentional attacks.
So, what kind of defenses does the United States need to thwart these threats? First and foremost, it would be useful to recognize that the threat of theft is an artifact of the idea that lifeforms can be patented. Were it not for what I believe is a hideous legal mistake made by the United States Supreme Court after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected a patent filed for a lifeform, theft of intellectual property in the form of seeds would not exist. The court struck down that rejection and the race to control the world's living organisms through patents was on.*
Now, I understand that if I steal a bag of seeds someone has purchased, I'm stealing that person's property. If I'm the one who buys the seed and the seed is genetically engineered and I save the seeds from the crop I grow, now according to the Supreme Court I'm stealing the seed. If a researcher, Chinese or otherwise, steals newly created engineered seed from the laboratory of a school (which usually has property rights in such "inventions") or a private company, then that's theft, too, the Supreme Court says.
But, there is an alternative and always has been. And, it does not infringe on any private ownership of the genetic code of lifeforms (though I believe such ownership is morally indefensible) and it is available to anyone who wants to participate. It's called open source seeds (which in the olden days used to simply be called "seeds"). These days, if you want to make sure no one can lock up the genes in your seeds, you have to do something affirmative to protect yourself and others who want to use them.
It works in a manner similar to that of Creative Commons which is used for any work that can be copyrighted. Essentially, you have to agree to allow the next person to use the genetic endowment in the seed freely. You can sell any seed you raise, but you cannot prevent the person you are selling it to from saving the seed from the resulting crop. This allows people to share, trade and sell seeds as they see fit (as they have since the beginning of agriculture).
Lots of seed research and testing used to be done by public institutions: universities and agriculture departments in federal and state governments. The fruits of that research were generally available to anyone who wanted it because it came from publicly funded research. For a good summary of how the various regimes governing seeds evolved over time, see this article. Now most of the seed research is done by private companies who naturally want to control completely the genetic information embedded in their seeds.
Some countries such as India have developed genetically engineered seed technology that is publicly owned and thus made available based on government policy. Whether or not publicly owned genetically engineered seed is a good idea, it does take the genetic endowment of such seeds out of the realm of private property.
The furor over seed technology theft is really just the major seed companies trying to enlist the world's governments and various international bodies in their quest to protect their patents. If a country as a matter of national policy wants to rid itself of concern over the theft of intellectual property in the form of seed genetics, all it has to do is focus on promoting open source seeds. It's easy: If there is no private genetic property, there can be no theft of such property!
Okay, one problem solved. What about the vulnerability of the world's crops to naturally occurring or intentionally placed pathogens?
I have two suggestions. First, go to polyculture instead of monoculture. Raising a variety of plants protects all plants and ensures yields of at least some under most conditions. Second, move toward a system that encourages a wide number of varieties of important food crops. This admittedly makes it more difficult for food processors to get consistent basic food ingredients. But this is not an insuperable problem. And it is well worth the protection it provides in the face of the growing threat of plant pathogens. Biodiversity is a natural barrier to pathogens. Those pathogens have a much more difficult time attacking and adapting to a multitude of varieties of a plant than just a few.
The author of the article cited at the beginning of this piece makes it seem as if the system of agriculture and seed production that we have today was simply inevitable. It wasn't. It resulted from a particular set of policy choices. That means we can choose better ones that will make our food crops more resilient within a system that includes growers and hobbyists in the creation of the kind of biodiversity we need—instead of leaving the seed system to a few behemoth corporations that want to have total control.
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*It is amusing to contemplate Big Ag running to the Supreme Court to claim that their genetically engineered crop varieties are each unique products eligible for patent protection while simultaneously claiming to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that these products are basically the same as non-engineered crop varieties and so require no premarket testing for safety. The Supreme Court treats genetically engineered crop varieties as if they were novel patentable drugs (new drugs must be tested thoroughly before coming to market) while the FDA treats them as if they are simply like any other food. I can think of no other product that is treated in such a divergent way by the government.
Kurt Cobb is a freelance writer and communications consultant who writes frequently about energy and environment. His work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Resilience, Common Dreams, Naked Capitalism, Le Monde Diplomatique, Oilprice.com, OilVoice, TalkMarkets, Investing.com, Business Insider and many other places. He is the author of an oil-themed novel entitled Prelude and has a widely followed blog called Resource Insights. He can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.
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