The European Parliament takes a stand against biopiracy

As you may have noticed, we have been following here the work of Catherine Grèze, a member of the european parliament of the Green party.

Well, we have some very good news. Grèze's report on the intellectual property rights of genetic resources in developing countries was adopted yesterday.

After the vote, she said that

“Biopiracy is a major problem in developing countries, flying in the face of poverty reduction measures, notably for indigenous communities. This report outlines the problem and sets out measures to protect the intellectual property rights for genetic resources and traditional knowledge in poorer countries and regions. The clear support of MEPs for this report underlines the need for action.“Genetic resources are essential for sustainable agriculture and food security in developing countries, as well as for species survival and ecosystem resilience. In spite of its vital importance for human survival, genetic diversity is being lost at an alarming rate. User countries have a responsibility to tackle this and the EU must play an active role. 

The recently-concluded Nagoya Protocol under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) sets out key provisions for addressing biopiracy, notably on access and benefit-sharing, prior informed consent and mutually-agreed terms. The EU must ratify the protocol as swiftly as possible and take immediate steps to ensure it is effective, such as through binding measures on compliance. However, more needs to be done to strengthen the rights of farmers in developing countries, as well to strengthen the rights of indigenous and local communities. 

Ultimately, there is also a need to address the lack of coherence in the global governance system for dealing with the intellectual property implications of genetic resources. International IP arrangements, notably the WTO’s TRIPS agreement, must be reformed to ensure they support the overarching goals of the CBD on genetic resources, rather working against them. One important step would be the inclusion of a binding regulation under TRIPS requiring patent applicants to disclose the origin of any genetic resources and traditional knowledge used in invention.” 

To view the report please click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Beware of AGRA?

One of the organisation featured in the documentary, The Africa Centre for Biosafety (ACB), is sending warnings against The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (known as AGRA and supported by agribusiness multinationals and the Gates Foundation).

Now quoting both a study published by ACB and this article published on All Africa

According to ACB, "AGRA effectively seeks to institutionalise biopiracy by accessing publicly available genetic resources, patenting or imposing other intellectual property rights on the resulting seeds, and then using these industrial monoculture crops to channel African farmers into focusing on earning enough export cash to buy the privatised seed," adding, "The AGRA model uses free inputs to develop monopoly control over outputs and expects farmers to pay for seeds they previously shared and traded, and played a major part in developing over thousands of years."

One of the stands we are taking in our documentary is against the patenting of traditional knowledge and genetic resources following the system in place.