Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology!

Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology!

Genetic engineering and biotechnology are cutting-edge technologies, and where they are appropriate, they can be of great benefit to resource-poor farmers. There is, however, a problem. Many concerned citizens worry that more and more biotechnological research is concentrated in the private sector, and that its results are patented and hence may prove to be too sophisticated or expensive for resource-poor farmers.

The worry is justified, when research priorities are determined by the financial return on investment, the needs of those who have the purchasing power are likely to have higher priority than the poverty eradication needs of small farmers.

For this reason public research must be strengthened, because its fruits can be passed on to small farmers at cost or, via government channels, even free of charge. This cannot be done with the results of research sponsored by private enterprise.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), with its focus on the needs of the developing countries, has to continue to play a conspicuous role in such an effort-and international financial support for CGIAR therefore ought to remain high. But there must also be more and more intensive cooperation between the private and public sectors.

The special knowledge and know-how and the different experience-and patented intellectual property-at the disposal of the private sector, but used only selectively for lucrative markets in industrial countries could be passed on via donated transfers or favourable licensing terms to public research institutes m developing countries. The feasibility of this has already been demonstrated by a number of concrete examples.

As far as the compensation issue for the use of genetic material from developing countries is concerned, solutions are also within reach. Fair arrangements here are not so much a matter of solidarity but justice.

Suppose, for example, that a private seeds company discovered a trait in an Ethiopian barley strain that made it resistant to certain plant diseases, and then genetically transferred this property to a wheat variety that would afterwards be commercialised in Ethiopia.

Obviously, the farmers in Ethiopia have contributed something by selecting and preserving this variety over a long period of time. It is also obvious that without the R&D work of the seed company, the trait would not have been used outside Ethiopia or in food grains other than the native barley.

So both parties-the farmers of Ethiopia and the seed company- have contributed to the new wheat variety, and therefore both have some kind of an intellectual property right and a right to compensation.