Thousands of plant patent applications in one hand alarm local environmentalists! They see threatened what is on our plate.
After intensive research, a European eco-network – including Global 2000, Friends of the Earth, Noah’s Ark and the Chamber of Labor – is now putting the two biotech giants Corteva and Bayer on the ecological pillory. “Corteva has filed for 1,430 plant patents — more than any other company. The dramatic thing: the very perfidious methods of new genetic engineering (NGT, note), which directly interfere with the genetic makeup of the plants, are used.”Global 2000 expert Brigitte Reisenberger sounds the alarm, as does Katherine Dolan of Noah’s Ark in Schiltern near Langenlois (Lower Austria).
Particularly shocking and crystal clear in the international research report: The billion-dollar gene technology companies praise these new processes as “natural” processes that are undetectable anyway and are therefore exempt from European Union security checks and labeling regulations for genetically modified food.
Two companies control 40 percent of the market
The fact that Brussels is currently considering relaxing this very strict ban on genetic engineering – precisely for these new methods – is an explosive factor. The shocking thing about this development, which has now also been revealed by research from the darkness of corporate networks and labs, is that the two companies already control 40 percent of the global industrial seed market. Ongoing profit increase included. They also have far-reaching licensing agreements with relevant research institutes that develop the technologies. Reisenberger therefore fears total market control and ultimately sovereignty over the vegetables that end up on our plate.
Just one of many examples: Corteva has patent number EP 2893023 for a method to modify a cell’s genome (including using NGT application) and claims intellectual property rights to all cells, seeds and plants that produce the same “invention”, whether in broccoli, corn, soy, rice, wheat, cotton, barley or sunflower. In addition, with NGT it is almost impossible to know exactly what is patented, because applications are often deliberately broad in order to obtain broader ‘protection’.
Whirlpool of legal uncertainty for farmers
Seed companies deliberately blur the differences between conventional breeding, random mutagenesis and old and new genetic engineering. Because information about what is in the patents is hardly available, it is difficult to find out which plants or properties have been patented. However, this brings our farmers and seed breeders into a maelstrom of legal uncertainty.
In the future it will be unclear what they are allowed to do with the plants they work with on a daily basis. What royalties should be paid and what could potentially lead to a lawsuit. Monsanto, now merged with Bayer, filed 144 patent infringement lawsuits against farmers in the United States between 1997 and 2011. An even greater control over the local farmers is therefore inevitable.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
