• Common Ground •

Why should it matter who owns the seed patents as long as we have abundant cheap food; Isn't that what will really end world hunger?

I often find myself explaining to someone why the difficulties in being a farmer go far beyond the mechanics of growing food. First, let me point out that at every level of agriculture policy activism that I've been involved in for the past sixteen years no one has asked my what kind of food I grow. Likewise, most of the other farmers that I meet and know, especially the 'conventional' growers identify themselves as agricultural producers of "(fill in the blank)" commodity. Swept along by the agricultural industrial machine and subjugated by the industrial chemical-agricultural-military complex they have strained to forge an agricultural reality within the parameters set by this absolutely non-agrarian construct. ME? I grow food; your food and my food, my children's food my livestock's and fowl's food and, yes, they in turn become our food as well. I also know that first to the table at which I labor is the biota of the soil that I work to feed so that they can, in turn, thrive and feed the plants and animals that feed us. There are a few and growing number of voices who see clearly and are calling out, but the din caused by the barkers and shills for industry has befuddled and enraptured an overfed and largely complacent public. David W. Ehrenfeld, Rutgers' Professor of Biology, and of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, CC; M.D., Harvard; Ph.D. has written the following, excerpted from a larger piece, "A Cruel and Transient Agriculture".

"Excluding military spending on fabulously expensive, dysfunctional weapons systems, there is no more dramatic case of people having their needs appropriated for the sake of profit at any cost. Like high-input agriculture, genetic engineering is often justified as a humane technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase the sales of chemicals and bioengineered products to dependent farmers, and to increase the dependence of farmers on their new handlers, the seed companies and the oil, chemical, and pharmaceutical companies that own them."

Ok, so we get our ire up a bit at the industrial behemoth. Not Ok! Who is really responsible? Shouldn't we reserve our anger for the real culprit? Here's another bit of information, this from the Rural Advancement Foundation International [RAFI] located in Canada."The US government is advancing research and squandering taxpayer dollars on a technology that has been universally condemned because it is bad for farmers, food security, and biodiversity," says Pat Mooney, Executive Director of RAFI. "It's an egregious misallocation of public resources for the sole purpose of maximizing seed industry profits," adds Mooney.

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the national agricultural research organization in the US, and is comprised of approximately 2340 scientists. USDA’s Agricultural Research Service has released more than 400 new crop germplasm lines/varieties since 2000, often in partnership with university and private sector breeders. A total of 157 USDA patents to date have been issued for biotechnology products and methods. USDA spends about $220 million annually on research related to biotechnology.

There is no specific national program for organic agriculture and therefore until recently there was no documentation of which scientists were conducting organic research or the extent of the USDA commitment to organic research. Early pioneers in organic agricultural research were mostly growers and researchers working with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The lack of funding for state and federal research was in part due to the lack of economic impact and political clout of the organic sector during its early years. One common comment by USDA researchers was "Organic growers just don’t come to us for help." Ideological differences still exist and scientists sometimes see the organic industry as a different kind of constituency then other grower groups with which they interact. An excellent illustration of this was the scientist who stated that he didn't’t want to work on organic agriculture because he might sound like an advocate for organic agriculture. However, all scientists within the USDA/ARS work for particular sectors of agriculture at the exclusion of others.

The Organic Transitions Program is part of the Integrated Pest Management Integrated Competitive Grants authorization in the 1998 farm bill (AREERA). A second program, the Organic Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) was authorized in the 2002 farm bill. Grants from OREI were funded for the first time in 2004 as part of the Integrated Organic Program (IOP), which combined both authorizations into a single program. To date these two programs have awarded approximately $8.5 million dollars for organic research projects.

This money is equal to less than two percent of the annual budget for Biotechnology research.

I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not explaining this for any other reason than to demonstrate where the interests of those individuals who decide on what kind of agriculture to spend your/our money [often a part of which accrues to their bank books]lie. Every nickel that you spend on locally produced, certified organic food is another grain of weight on the side of a truly sustainable healthy food supply. After all, our government no longer considers people in rule making and law, only dollars count. Notice how quickly individuals are abandoned in the decision making process and economics drive results.

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