-Caveat Lector- Time to KEEP PUSHING as Monsanto gives way to public opinion! Dave Hartley http://www.Asheville-Computer.com http://www.ioa.com/~davehart ========================================== http://ens.lycos.com/ens/oct99/1999L-10-06-02.html Monsanto Puts Terminator Seeds on the Shelf ST. LOUIS, Missouri, October 6, 1999 (ENS) - The agricultural biotech firm Monsanto has announced it will not commercialize technologies that render seeds sterile. In an open letter to Rockefeller Foundation president Gordon Conway on Monday, Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro pledged, "I am writing to let you know that we are making a public commitment not to commercialize sterile seed technologies, such as the one dubbed "Terminator." Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro in 1997 addressing the Microcredit Summit (MS) (Photo courtesy MS) "We are doing this based on input from you and a wide range of other experts and stakeholders, including our very important grower constituency," Shapiro wrote. The prospect of plants that produce sterile seeds that cannot be replanted but must be purchased anew for each year's crop has caused widespread protests in developing countries. Farmers fear not being able to harvest viable seeds will threaten food security. Shapiro told a Greenpeace conference in London today via a video link from the United States that Monsanto is now seeking to move from "debate" to "dialogue" on transgenic crop issues. This shift, he said, is behind the company's withdrawal of plans to commercialize sterile seeds. Shapiro admitted to the Greenpeace conference that the company has failed to listen enough to criticisms of its development of genetically modified (GM) crops and pledged the firm to engage in discussions "openly, honestly and non-defensively." But Shapiro's olive branch to critics cut no ice with the head of Greenpeace UK, Peter Melchett, who responded with strong criticisms of Monsanto. The company behaved as a "bully" and was offering a "failed vision," Melchett said. "Everything we have actually seen of GM food and farming so far is bad, and is taking us in the wrong direction," said Melchett. Greenpeace would happily work with Monsanto, he said, but only if it would "stop developing GM crops, get out of producing pesticides, and reject the idea of patenting life forms." Chickpea germplasm (Photo courtesy International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)) In his open letter to the Rockefeller Foundation president, Shapiro explained, "...sterile seed technology is one of a class of so-called 'gene protection systems.' This is a group of technologies, all still in the conceptual or developmental stage, that could potentially be used to protect the investment companies make in developing genetically improved crops, as well as possibly providing other agronomic benefits. Some would work by rendering seeds from such crops sterile, while others would work by other means, such as deactivating only the value added biotech trait. One of the sterile seed technologies was developed and patented jointly by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Delta & Pine Land, with which we announced our intent to merge in the spring of 1998. Delta & Pine Land co-owns the prototype Terminator patent with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. patent number 5,723,765. Monsanto holds a second patent, WO 9744465, published November 27, 1997. Still, Shapiro wrote in his open letter, "Monsanto does not yet actually own a sterile seed technology." "It is also important to understand that the technical and business utility of sterile seed technology is speculative," Shapiro wrote. "The specific technology over which Monsanto would gain ownership through its pending merger with Delta & Pine Land is developmental, at least five years away from any possible commercialization, and may or may not prove workable in a commercial setting." Farmer in Burkina-Faso examines his sorghum crop. (Photo courtesy ICRISAT) At the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) in Winnipeg, Canada, the Monsanto announcement was greeted with applause, not for the company, but for the people who pressured the company to renounce the Terminator technology. "Congratulations should go to the civil society organizations, farmers, scientists, and governments all over the world who have waged highly effective anti-Terminator campaigns during the past 18 months," said Pat Mooney, executive director of RAFI. "The public unanimously rejected Terminator because it's bad for farmers, food security, and the environment," he said. RAFI is a non-profit international organization which for 20 years has worked on the social and economic impact of new technologies on rural societies. "Monsanto would never have abandoned the profit generating potential of sterile seeds just because it was an immoral technology," said RAFI's research director, Hope Shand. "The company finally realized that Terminator will never win public acceptance. Terminator has became synonymous with corporate greed, and it was met with intense opposition all over the world." Shapiro did not rule out the development of other gene protection technologies. "Monsanto holds patents on technological approaches to gene protection that do not render seeds sterile and has studied one that would inactivate only the specific gene(s) responsible for the value-added biotech trait. We are not currently investing resources to develop these technologies, but we do not rule out their future development and use for gene protection or their possible agronomic benefits," he wrote. Monsanto is the second large biotech firm to back away from sterile seed technology. In June of this year, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity received a letter from UK based AstraZeneca announcing that it would not commercialize seed sterility technologies. "In all, more than a dozen companies and public institutes have at least 31 patents that include claims involving seed sterilization," Mooney says. The National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences is planning an international study of these issues. {ENDS Environment Daily contributed to this article. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Website: http://www.ends.co.uk/envdaily} © Environment News Service (ENS) 1999. All Rights Reserved. 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