NORTHERN GARDENER
Terminators and Verminators
The Brave New World
of Corporate Food Manipulation
HighGrader Magazine January/February
1999
by Joe Muething
Around the world, gardeners and farmers gather seeds from various
vegetables and flowers to save for the next year's garden. If
the seeds are harvested at the right time, cured and stored properly,
most of them will grow when planted in the spring.
It's a practice that's been going on for as long as humans have
cultivated plants. Built into this practice is an inherent respect
for seeds which, throughout history, have symbolized life and
fertility. As the new millennium approaches, however, new technologies
may force us to change our traditional view and, indeed, our traditional
use of seeds.
U.S. Patent No. 5,723,765, issued in March of 1998, details a
process for genetically altering seeds in order to render their
offspring sterile. The altered seed would germinate and grow like
a normal crop, but, at sometime late in the development of the
plant, a "toxin gene" would be triggered which would
kill the nearly developed seeds. Dead seeds, of course, are not
viable. This would prevent seed saving the grower would be forced
to buy new seed from the seed company every year.
The supporters of this concept call it the Technology Protection
System (TPS). Critics of the system have gone with a more colourful
designation The Terminator a name coined by the Winnipeg, Manitoba
based Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI).
By any name, the new technology has caused a storm of controversy
world wide. Mississippi based Delta and Pine Land Company, the
seed company that worked with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to
develop and patent the process, suddenly found itself under the
scrutiny of the global media. When news of a mutually agreed merger
between chemical/biotechnology giant Monsanto and Delta and Pine
Land Company became public last May, much of the heat shifted
to Monsanto.
Monsanto spokesperson Gary Barton had a hard time keeping the
annoyance out of his voice when I asked him about Monsanto's plans
regarding TPS. "We don't own that technology", said
Barton. "We do not own Delta and Pine Land. I can't tell
you how many times I read that. Doesn't anyone in journalism check
facts anymore?"
Fact: Delta and Pine Land Company agreed in May, 1998 to merge
with Monsanto, subject to Delta and Pine Land company shareholders'
and government approval.
Barton was adamant that Monsanto's reasons for buying Delta and
Pine Land Company have nothing to do with the Terminator Technology.
"We are simply interested in them as a seed company",
he said.
At Delta and Pine Land Company Dr. Harry Collins, Vice President
of Technology Transfer, was happy to talk about TPS. But first
he wanted to set one thing straight. " We are not owned,
at this time, by Monsanto. Several articles have inaccurately
stated that Delta and Pine Land Company is owned by Monsanto."
Having cleared the air on that issue, Collins spoke at length
about his company's controversial new patent. At the present time,
according to Collins, the TPS technology is in the conceptual
stage. Delta and Pine Land Company is not growing any plants with
the complete technology in them. They do have test plants under
observation which contain individual components of the technology.
How long before self-sterilizing plants are being marketed? Collins
expects that Delta and Pine Land Company will be incorporating
the technology into some of their cotton varieties by 2005. Wheat
and rice were mentioned as likely candidates to follow in development.
The technology could be marketed to other seed companies as well.
As Collins explains it, TPS is a winner for the farmer as well
as the seed company. With the seed companies secure in the knowledge
that growers who use their seed must buy it every year, the seed
companies will put more money into research and development of
new and improved varieties. The farmers will benefit from higher
and more profitable yields.
A different perspective on the technology is offered by Pat Mooney
of RAFI. RAFI is a not-for-profit international organization with
an annual budget of $553,000 and five employees. It addresses
issues related to the socio-economic impact of new technologies
on rural societies.
Says Mooney, "The technology is aimed primarily at seed markets
in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where over 1.4 billion people
depend on farm-saved seed and on arm plant breeding. If widely
adopted, the Terminator would make it impossible for farmers to
save seed and breed their own crops."
Dr. Collins disagrees. "TPS", he says, "will not
eliminate the multiple use from one purchase choice available
to farmers in Third World countries, since traditional seeds will
continue to be available."
One concern is that plants containing the Terminator gene will
cross with plants in neighboring fields, rendering at least some
of those plants sterile as well. Proponents of the technology
say that because most of the crops under current consideration
are self-pollinating, this would be of little consequence. But
many professionals in the life sciences disagree.
Martha Crouch is an Associate Professor of Biology at Indiana
University. She has a Ph.D. from Yale and her specialty is plant
developmental biology. She recently published a paper called "How
the Terminator terminates". In a section titled "Will
the Terminator spread to other plants?" she describes a scenario
whereby a Terminator crop is planted adjacent to a traditional
crop: "The (Terminator) seeds will grow into plants, and
make pollen. Every pollen grain will carry a ready-to-act toxin
gene. If the Terminator crop is next to a field planted in a normal
variety and the pollen is taken by insects or the wind to that
field, any eggs fertilized by the Terminator pollen will now have
one toxin gene."
The result is dead seed. How much of the seed in the adjacent
field dies would depend on a number of factors including species
of plant, variety of crop and the weather.
Terminator supporters contend that this is a non-issue. They predict
that the damage done to nearby conventional crops would be minimal
and probably undetectable.
Dr. Crouch disagrees. "If you were to walk into a farmer's
field and destroy say 10% of the crop you would be charged",
she said, " Why should damaging a crop in this way (i.e.
by planting a Terminator crop nearby) be any different?"
It's questions such as these that have made things rough for proponents
of the Terminator. In October 1998, the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) banned the Terminator
and related genetic seed sterilization technology from its crop
breeding programs. The CGIAR is a global network of 16 international
agricultural research centres which collectively form the worlds'
largest public plant breeding effort for resource-poor farmers.
The technology has also been banned outright by India's Minister
of Agriculture.
As the debate continues, more companies are scrambling to create
their own version of the Terminator. Zeneca, a British firm, has
now applied for a patent on a seed killing technology. It's been
dubbed the Verminator because one source for a "killer"
gene would be a protein taken from rats. Yes, rats.
The issue of biotechnological ethics leads to many other issues:
Developed World vs. Third World agricultural philosophies, corporate
control vs. personal control, and , of course, consumer rights.
Do we, as consumers, have the right to know if our bread is made
from wheat that was killed by a biological time bomb before it
was harvested and which contains genetic material from rats?
I'll let Martha Crouch have the final say on this issue: "There
will be surprises. But whatever the potential biological problems
presented by Terminator, in my view, they are small in comparison
to Terminator's economic, social, and political ramifications."
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