IN THIS "International Year of Rice," India is being nudged by the US and its cohortsto take up genetically modified rice to "solve the problems" on the this cereal . The Indian Council of Agricultural Research, is all set to celebrate the year of rice with the conviction that it is only biotechnology, to be specific genetically modified rice, that would salvage the crop from all the constraints. The Centre for Cellular Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad, is working on a rice variety bred through molecular manipulation, which is pest-resistant, but the institute's director, Dr Lalji Singh, is sure that this is "no genetically modified rice variety" .

At the centre of all these controversies are two things. One, an overarching desire of the multinational corporations to own the seed, and their collaborators in India to lend a helping hand, which is supposed to usher in a "new era" in the farm sector, on the one hand. And, two,the genuine concerns of many who suspect that the motivation is to make money than alleviate hunger from the face of the earth, with attendant dangers to human health and environment from the extensive use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

On the first issue, some recent developments are worthy of note. Recently, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that a company's patent on a gene covers the use of all products containing that gene. This might have obviously reduced the legal uncertainties on the GMOs. But it has heightened and highlighted the political conflict accompanying them. Three issues have dominated the discussion whether a GMO can be called an `invention' and, therefore, eligible for patent protection, ever since scientists developed the capability to impart organisms new characteristics by inserting into them foreign genes.

Of the three issues, two are seen primarily as legal arguments. The first centres on the primary question whether living organisms can be patented at all, genetically modified or otherwise. The scope of this issue is so wide as one can see in the implications - the Indian Basmati rice, the Darjeeling tea or the Malabar pepper can no more be patented, as much as Champagne from France or Scotch from Scotland. That is why a new thought has cropped up on the question of patents by providing the cover of "geographical appellation". For instance, Paris can always say that Champagne, a small village where the world famous wine is made, is in France and no other country can brand its wine by that name; so also that with Scotch whisky. India has been dragging its feet on this line of thinking. Notwithstanding these stipulations, an enterprising agribusiness company from Texas has brought out its own Basmati - `Texmati' - helped apparently by the transfer of native, unique germplasms to the Americans.

For much of the biotechnology industry, the above-mentioned issue was resolved by a landmark judgment of the US Supreme Court in the early 1980s, when it ruled in the case of an oil-spill cleaning bacterium developed by Dr Ananda Chakraborty, an India-born engineer, working in the US, with General Electric Corporation, that there was nothing in the US Constitution that prevented such `inventions' from being covered by the patent legislation. Nearly three decades ago, the judgment made no ripples, but the discovery was hailed as a great scientific contribution, and as is always the case, India also had hoisted its flag on the "spectacular achievement by an Indian scientist" on American soil.

Two years ago, however, the above-mentioned issue was thrown open, once again, by the equivalent judicial body in Canada, when it refused to grant a patent on Harvard University's `oncomouse' - the mouse genetically engineered for cancer research - on the grounds that such patents would go beyond what was ethically and legally correct in Canada. The contrary judgments led to a legal impasse, leading to no international consensus on the issue.

In the second issue on GMO patents, the Canadian court points in a different direction, by extending rather than limiting the scope of patents on DNA sequences and the organisms that contain them. In the most recent decision, in August last week, the court confirmed that any product that contained a patented component was itself covered by the provisions of that patent if its owner sold it. And this applied to a living organism which contained a patented gene. This pertains to a landmark judgment by the Canadian court in a case put up by Monsanto, against a Canadian farmer, Mr P. Schmeiser, who had been allegedly growing the MNC's patented canola without its consent. The court's decision is the first of its kind upholding the company's right to restrict a farmer from using its GM seeds. And this decision impinges on the fundamental right of a tiller of the land and has far-reaching political consequences. Mr Schmeiser argued that he had only used the seeds which came from his own harvest and that the GM seeds must have originated from plants which had propagated themselves from seeds blown in from neighbouring farms. He further argued that he did not use "Round Up" - the herbicide that Monsanto sells with the seed - to which the seeds were tolerant which allows them to survive while killing the weeds when the herbicide is sprayed and, thus, his contention was that he was not benefiting from the `invented' gene which confers herbicide resistance to the plant grown from the seed. But the court accepted the company's argument that the farmer had no right to even `re-use' the seed (from his own harvest) without payment of the required royalty.

In other words, once a farmer uses an `invented' gene-carrying seed - a patented one - he was endlessly bound to the MNC. Mr Schmeiser was ordered by the court to pay more than $1,00,000 in costs and penalties. Mr Schmeiser's only consolation was that the Supreme Court disagreed with a lower court's ruling that he had made money out of his action, and, therefore, overturned the lower court's order to pay his profit of $14,000 million to the company. As in Dr Chakraborty's case, the court's decision was split, four out of the nine judges ruling that, as per the earlier ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, organisms as such, including plants, cannot be patented - as was the case with Harvard University's `oncomouse' case - and, therefore, Monsanto was not permitted to claim royalties on seeds that Mr Schmeiser - rather than that of Monsanto - had produced. However, they were outnumbered by the other five judges who ruled that the farmer ought to have paid the royalty to Monsanto and that the latter had focussed on the gene rather than the end product - the plant - and therefore, Mr Schmeiser's stand was null and void.

Predictably, Monsanto felt vindicated in its stand, but Mr Schmeiser was not alone, and he and his supporters are moving Canadian Parliament for a change in its patent laws. Obviously, the stand is that the battle, and not the war, against GM seeds - its legal aspects - is lost.

Mr Schmeiser and his supporters have a good case for a political debate on GM seeds. Though much of the opposition to GM plants is based on aspects of human health hazards and environmental danger, there has always been uneasiness that the whole question of agri-biotechnology is dominated by the MNCs involved. In other words, these MNCs want to retain the right to decide what the farmers can and cannot plant. Stretching this logic, the world is being nudged to a position where the US-dominated bio-tech firms will decide what the rest of the world can consume.
What does all the above bode for India? Though patents have an important role to play, the main problem is the way the patent system is manipulated by the agribusiness MNCs to their advantage.

In the case of GM crops, the issue is different, but in no way less contentious because the patent-owning companies become all too powerful. India can learn a lesson or two from small countries such as Mexico in the backyard of the US, which said no to GM maize because the country is the origin of maize and it, on no account, wanted genetic pollution. The same is true of Thailand. Courts cannot settle all the issues. Rather for India, the entire question must be nationally debated so that vested interests do not usurp what rightfully belongs to the public at large.

The implementation of international agreements on patent rights, such as the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIP) of the WTO, should remain sufficiently flexible to allow this debate to take place. It should also ensure that the economic and political interests of the poor farmers are adequately addressed. More often than not, that is not the case.