Transcripts
"What's frying?"
by Alex Wijeratna
How do you get a complex issue across to the great British public? By threatening a much-loved institution. Alex Wijeratna describes how an ActionAid campaign demonstrates the absurdity of the patent system
The "patents on plants" debate is a truly global issue. It touches communities across the globe, from native Indians in Chiapas, Mexico, to San bushmen from the southern Africa's Kalahari desert; but it could put the control of people's livelihoods into the hands of a few large corporations.
I remember scything Thai jasmine rice in a field near Ubon Ratchithani - ten hours from Bangkok in Thailand - with four women farmers. One turned to me and said that I had to help them and stop the Americans patenting and "stealing" their jasmine rice. "They can't take our rice," she said. "It's our ancestors', it's in nature, it's sacred, we worship it. Please tell them to stop."
Well, that's what ActionAid's Food Rights campaign is doing. We've helped to explain "biopiracy" to the public by exposing the injustice of patents on plants; for example spotlighting infamous US patents on neem [an East Indian tree which produces an aromatic oil], turmeric, and basmati rice.
But we wanted to bring things much closer to home. It was time ActionAid patented something really British - an English rose, Scottish thistle, or Welsh leek? In the end, it had to be chips.
Of course, when Salil Shetty, our chief executive, filed an 11-page patent application on the ready-salted 'ActionAid chip' during National Chip Week in February, we touched a raw nerve. The phones were buzzing. Was ActionAid being serious? (Answer: yes.) Could we realistically win rights to all salted chips in the country? (Answer: probably not.) Is it possible to patent plant varieties? (Answer: yes.) Are the basics of the food chain being cornered by a handful of multinational companies? (Answer: judge for yourselves.)
We did 50 radio broadcasts, and reports of our campaign against the unfairness of patents on crops appeared in India, Belgium, the USA, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Japan.
The patenting of crops is a complex issue. It reveals another of the far-reaching effects of the TRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement, which Oxfam has also tackled in its Cut the Cost campaign.
Global awareness is emerging and worldwide momentum is building towards the September 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg. Last month, at the World Social Forum in Brazil, 250 global groups signed up to the idea of a patent-free "Treaty to Share the Genetic Commons" (no patents on crops, plants, and their genes)..
Patenting plants and their genes is the embodiment of globalisation. It's one of the defining issues of the early 21st century - it will determine who runs global agriculture.
Alex Wijeratna
For more on ActionAid's Food Rights campaign:
Call 01460 23 80 47 or see www.actionaid.org.uk.
Visit www.oxfam.org.uk/cutthecost for the latest on Oxfam's campaign.
© Friends Of Le Monde Diplomatique
