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Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:07:13 -0500
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Subject: Africa: Seed Sharing or Biopiracy


Africa: Seed Sharing or Biopiracy

AfricaFocus Bulletin
Dec 20, 2007 (071220)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note

"Sharing of seed is the essence of our planet's agricultural
biodiversity.  Without the open palm offering seeds, we all lose.
Current policies,  however, are closing the fist around seed,
evident in the strong drive  for individual access and monopoly
ownership of genetic resources, as  opposed to open access and
collective principles of communities." - Andrew Mushita and Carol
B. Thompson

In their new book, Biopiracy of Biodiversity: Global Exchange as
Enclosure, Andrew Mushita and Carol Thompson explore a wide range
of issues related to food security, biodiversity, and the conflict
between pressures for industrial agriculture and preservation of
the lives and livelihoods of small farmers, particularly in
Southern Africa. But the issues discussed go beyond one region, posing questions about the 
sustainability of agriculture and
the environment in both rich and poor countries.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a small number of brief excerpts
from the book, touching on only a fraction of the issues raised by
the authors on the basis of extensive first-hand experience and research, with full credit given to the 
traditional wisdom and scientific ingenuity of African farmers themselves. The book is available from 
the publisher, Africa World Press
  (http://www.africaworldpressbooks.com).

Among recent reports and website on related issues, see
particularly:

"A New Green Revolution for Africa?" December 2007
http://www.grain.org/briefings?id=205

"An African Call for a Moratorium on Agrofuel Development" November
2007
http://www.grain.org/agrofuels/?moratoriumen

Outcome of Meeting of African Farmers' Groups in Mali, December
2007
http://www.moreandbetter.org and
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/44955

Updates and reports on trade and agriculture
http://www.agobservatory.org

For links to previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on agriculture and
related issues, see http://www.africafocus.org/agexp.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++

Biopiracy of Biodiversity: Global Exchange as Enclosure
by Andrew Mushita and Carol B. Thompson
Africa World Press, 2007

Selected Excerpts

From Acknowledgements

Biodiversity is a marvel of complexity, for many species are
situated in  one place, unique to a site; yet biodiversity spreads
and grows only if  the species are exchanged and travel across the
ecosystem to new sites,  adapting slowly to new climes. ...

Sharing of seed is the essence of our planet's agricultural
biodiversity.  Without the open palm offering seeds, we all lose.
Current policies,  however, are closing the fist around seed,
evident in the strong drive  for individual access and monopoly
ownership of genetic resources, as  opposed to open access and
collective principles of communities. ...

This study comes to the conclusion, startling to most of those
outside the continent, that Africa has answers to its food deficits
and  food insecurity. It is not one answer but rather, reflects the
vast diversity  of soils, terrains, waters and species on the
continent. Plowing that  diversity into monoculture for increased
yields or into privatization  in the name of incentives perpetuates
general models that have failed.  Other approaches, some very old
and some quite new, will sustain  Africa'?s biodiversity, and
therefore, its food security.

The story extends much beyond Africa in that the alternative
policies  offer lessons for other countries and other peoples,
especially those  eating chemical foods. Africa demonstrates that
none of the dominant  international policies - from food production
to patenting to trade -  is inevitable. Viable and sustainable
alternatives are not only possible,  but already exist. Resisting
biopiracy in order to harvest biodiversity,  African alternative
approaches show how to sustain the open palms  exchanging seeds.
...

From Chapter I

"If someone asks you for seed, you cannot refuse her." - Zimbabwean
farmer

The essence of seed exchange is sharing, for plants reproduce
themselves  without human intervention. ...  Because seeds are a
gift to each one of us,  they are a gift to all. Ancient cultures
increased this wealth by sharing seed, by giving  it away. Such an
action, reflecting nature's example, increased biodiversity  across
the globe. ...

In this way, the maize seed has traveled from central Mexico across
the Great Plains to Canada. In less than 300 years from the 1500s,
it traveled around the globe and became established as a major food
crop?from the Mayans and Aztecs to the Shona and Lunga in Africa,
to Sikkim and Bhutan in the Himalayas to China, the Philippines,
and  Indonesia.1 Maize has become the staple food, the center of
spiritual  rituals, the seed of healing for highly diverse peoples.

Yet the terrible other side of this story is that all this
richness,  beauty, and wealth - germinating from sharing - is now
threatened. It  is being destroyed by refusal to share, by hoarding
for a false, ephemeral  prosperity. It is being destroyed in the
name of science, of law, and "just  reward," in the name of
innovation, power, and of profit.

The open palm offering seed to share is received by a clenched
fist, symbolizing enclosure of the global gene pool. ...

Maize in Southern Africa has often been cited an exception [to the
dominance  of cash crops] because it is both a cash crop and a food
crop, eaten three times a day  by many families while supplies
last. However, maize became more and  more a cash crop, including
after independence from colonialism, for it  entered the formal
market, was valued by governments for food security  storage, and
for export to earn foreign exchange. Almost exclusively,  the
amount of the maize harvest or storage defines "food surplus" or
"food shortage" in Southern Africa. This formal perspective
dominates  any other; if there is not enough wheat, maize could
substitute.  But if maize supplies are insufficient, it is
announced by international  monitors that "famine" is pending. A
crop may feed millions, but if  there are inaccurate international
figures about the tonnage exchanged  informally ("illegal"
cross-border trade), it does not exist on official  statistics. Yet
Africa devotes more hectares to sorghum and millet than  to all
other food crops combined, and it remains a major food grain in
the Southern African region.

After more than a decade of clarion calls for emergency food aid
to save starving Southern Africans, followed by reduced
international  responses, somehow the "millions" rarely starved.
Why? Was the  international response so quick, so efficient in
getting to remote areas  that the disaster was averted? Yes,
partially. International agencies do  not imagine the drought
crisis, but report the conditions of cash crops  accurately; the
agencies are vital to thousands and save lives every crisis  year.

But the millions? They are saved by their own production of
alternative foods. They are saved by the biodiversity of food
sources;  many of the 2000 indigenous food crops are still
preserved in the rural  areas (not only sorghum and millets but
bambara nuts, many tuber  and root crops, fruits - monkey orange,
water berry, marula, baobab).  Traditional ecological knowledge
designates some highly drought- resistant plants to be eaten only
in times of dire need. Botswana alone  has 250 plants that are used
specially as "famine food." The millions  are also saved by urban
agriculture, where minuscule plots of spare land  are planted, not
in flowering shrubs copying European gardens, but in  food crops;
in Lesotho, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe,  many an urban
family sustains themselves, not with less than below- poverty-level
wages, but with urban agriculture. ...

[Yet] In many areas of Southern Africa, government resources were
directed to develop maize and diverted from sorghum. ...In Southern
Africa, maize became overwhelmingly the commercial food staple.
Technology  and marketing created its status as the commercial
monoculture,  but fortunately, it never reached monoculture for
food production.

Small-scale farmers (women) continued to grow sorghum on small
plots for home consumption. As nutritious as maize for
carbohydrates,  vitamin B6, and food energy, it is more nutritious
in protein, ash,  pantothenic acid, calcium, copper, iron,
phosphorus, isoleucine, and  leucine. One of the most versatile
foods in the world, one can boil  it like rice, or crack it like
oats for porridge, or bake it like wheat into  flatbreads, and pop
it like popcorn for snacks. ...

Sorghum is highly drought-resistant because strains have been bred
for flowering to occur, not when adequate rain has fallen, but
according  to daylight length. Therefore, even if the rains are
late or inadequate,  some plants will flower because of the change
in day length. Light, not  water, gives the signal for blooming. In
spite of the fact that indigenous  knowledge designated these
diverse and rich uses of sorghum, most  scientists have ignored its
genetic wealth: "sorghum is a relatively  undeveloped crop with a
truly remarkable array of grain types, plant  types, and
adaptability. Most of its genetic wealth is so far untapped  and
even unsorted. Indeed, sorghum probably has more undeveloped
genetic potential than any other major food crop in the world." ...

Today, extended families still keep each other alive during
droughts. They do need outside food assistance. ...However, sharing
what little there is keeps people alive. Sharing  extends the grain
much beyond the donors' calculations; after each  drought in
Southern Africa over the last decade (1992, 1998, 2002,  2003,
2004), the donors note how minimal food aid tonnage kept so  many
alive. Estimates of those at risk at the beginning of a famine
season  are not exaggerated, but minimal imports of food seem to
prevent starvation.  [While] communities are too poor to prevent
malnutrition in a  drought; they have time and again prevented
massive, widespread starvation.

An excellent farmer takes pride in her seed - and shares it with
the community. Part of the sharing is scientific; to  see if these
few seeds that taste better can germinate well in a field with
worse soil, or drier terrain. Or perhaps the neighboring relative
is a  better farmer and will be able to propagate more of the ?new?
seed.  Part of the sharing will be commercial, exchanging
good-quality seed  for some oxen power to plow a small plot. Those
with smaller plots  often farm more intensively, and therefore,
carefully watch over seed.  They may be poorer in money terms or
land, but richer in quality seed.  Seeds are still a highly valued
gift, for each one propagates many hundreds  more. ...

In many, not all, parts of urban Southern Africa, the fields are
brought to the city. In Dar es Salaam (a city of over 2 million),
almost  every little patch of land (too little to be called a plot)
has some food  crops planted - from delicate-leafed mchicha (a type
of spinach) to  the broad-leafed, majestic banana trees. In Harare
and Chitungwiza,  Zimbabwe, the small patch is so carefully and
intensively farmed that  one maize expert estimates the yield would
be as high as the very best  commercial farmer (about 10
tons/hectare, which is about 2.5 acres).  But they don't have
hectares, or even quarter hectares, but patches  measuring 5 x 3
meters. Urban agriculture is so extensive throughout  Zimbabwe that
its yield is what keeps people alive in an economy with  60 percent
unemployed. Have you ever wondered how any mother  could keep her
sanity if she lives in a country with rampant annual  inflation
(especially for bread and cooking oil), and unemployment  of 60
percent, with 80 percent living below the poverty line? Those
figures are lethal and describe more than one African economy. Too
many die every day. But most survive through their own traditions
of  sharing their indigenous knowledge and recent innovations; they
grow  their own food, save seed, and exchange it. They plant on
every open  corner of earth. They share the harvests. ,,,.

Selection of seed is assigned to the most adept - male or female -
who has a good eye and knowledge to select the most robust. The
better  farmers choose seed from the best plants in the field.
"Best" defines  the strongest, the one yielding the most grain,
with the preferred color,  pest resistance, and drought resistance.
Africans prefer not to select  a plant simply because it has the
highest yield. Many more traits are  equally valued, not the least
of which is the taste and texture of the  grain. Selection chooses
vigor, taste, color, texture, and yield. A plant  scientist from
Zimbabwe laughed as she said, when the U.S. Agency  for
International Development (USAID) comes with advice, the  agenda is
always "yield, yield, yield"? She said Zimbabweans are equally
interested in several other traits. ... A Tanzanian plant
geneticist stated  that they refuse to breed only for yield for
that is "monoculture within  monoculture" - preferring one trait of
hundreds within one crop of  hundreds. He pointed out that American
seed breeders ignore taste  because the industry manufactures taste
with additives of sugar and  citric acid. ...

The struggle over control of seed is passionate: Corporate leaders
think they can make billions; many scientists aspire to
manufacturing  "new" species; the promise of new cures tantalizes.
It is complicated:  ...

At one time, over 3,000 species were used as human food. The
director of the United Nations  Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) reminds us: "Today only  150 plant species are cultivated, 12
of which provide approximately 75  percent of our food and four of
which produce over half of the food we  eat. This involution has
increased the vulnerability of agriculture and  has impoverished
the human diet." Unless you are growing your own  food and saving
heirloom seed, you are vulnerable.

Yet we can't each grow our own food. Many of us prefer other
professions. We can, however, listen to those who have endured for
centuries by sustaining biodiversity, and thereby, the health of
their  environment, their families, their cultures. And we can all
debate the  issues. The potential negatives are too dangerous to be
left to any one  government, any one scientist or discipline, or
any one people. ...

"Biopiracy" refers to the ancient act of taking wealth, "looting,"
by force. Bioresources  have been freely shared over the centuries,
as peoples exchange  seed, plants, and animals for breeding; what
is very new (since 1985) is  that seed, whether an offered gift or
a stolen cultural secret, is then patented,  made into private
property. Biopiracy is removal of the organism,  whether by
literally taking the plant or seed and claiming ownership,  or by
destroying it. ...

Chapter 3 on the patenting of biodiversity begins by addressing
how the World Trade Organization (WTO) incorporated the first
international law to require intellectual property protection for
living  forms (microorganisms). The goal within the WTO, dating
from 2000,  is to extend patent laws over all plants and animals
(Article 27.3b).  Countries that are the source of global
biodiversity, however, are resisting  this approach ...  extending
intellectual property rights (IPRs) over seeds and plants
challenges scientific logic and threatens biodiversity. ... [These]
plans to extend IPRs from microorganisms  to plants and animals
have not succeeded, even though they have been  vigorously pursued
by the most powerful countries and global corporations.  ..

Chapter 9, "Choice Seed  - Seed Choices," compares and contrasts
international protocols for seed exchange from agencies trying  to
reconcile the demand for patenting, the respect for indigenous
knowledge, and the need to preserve biodiversity as a policy for
food  security. The Africa Union Model Legislation fulfills the
intent of the  WTO (TRIPs) without accepting patenting. ...
African agronomists are not simply stating that individual
ownership of seed eradicates its roots, removes its heritage - but
are  demonstrating how to propagate diversity while sharing. ,,,

************************************************************

From Chapter 2

...  today, seed or biotechnology corporations "take"  knowledge
and resources from others in three different ways. First,  as with
traditional botanical gardens, they often give no recognition  to
the original cultivators, and second, if they change one gene, they
add the legal precept that the corporation now owns the whole
living  organism as private property. ... Third, the  piracy
becomes more fierce when the companies state that not only  is the
modified wealth their own, but the original cultivators cannot  use
the seed or plants without paying tribute (royalties) to the newly
declared owners. Through the patenting of plants and seeds,
corporations  privatize traditional ecological knowledge as a
commodity to sell ... To those who oppose patenting of living
organisms,  privatizing a plant with a heritage dating back
thousands of years,  for one's own profit and prestige, is
tantamount to theft. ....

From Chapter 4

The creation of the Green Revolution research centers  (e.g., the
International Rice Research Institute, the  International Center
for the Improvement of Maize and  Wheat) was the product not only
of an effort to introduce  capitalism into the countryside but also
of the need to  collect systematically the exotic germplasm
required by  the breeding programs of the developed nations.
Western  science not only made the seed the catalyst for the
dissolution  and transformation of pre-capitalist agrarian social
formations, it also staffed an institutional network that has
served as a conduit for the extraction of plant germplasm  from the
Third World.

Yet the end result is the same. Only a very few indigenous strains
are  selected for international preservation. As farmers turn to
hybrids,  the rich variety of indigenous strains are lost forever.
Since the initial  thrust of the Green Revolution, plant breeders
and agronomists have  begun to recognize the value of local,
open-pollinated varieties (OPVs)  and many of the international
research centers, such as the Consultative  Group on International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR), now pay  almost as much attention to
those as to the hybrids. For example, in  Southern Africa, the
International Crops Research Institute for Semi- Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT) center at Matopos, Zimbabwe, has developed  new strains
of sorghum and millets, small grains used traditionally for
semi-arid, drought-prone areas. Many strains are OPVs. ...

The first principle of Southern African small-scale agricultural
policy is diversity, for crop diversity lowers risk, while
industrial agriculture  increases it. ...

Southern Africa is probably too reliant on too few varieties of
maize.  Some peasant farmers are returning to production of sweet
potatoes,  which are more nutritious than maize, have lower growing
costs and  tolerate variable rains. Drought-resistant sorghum can
be mixed with  white maize to make mealie meal, adding nutrition.
The goal should  not be a Green Revolution in white maize, too
dependent on ample  rains, but rather a diversification of staple
crops. Monoculture failures  in the 20th century point to
diversification for the 21st, to provide food  security under
changing weather conditions as well as higher levels of  nutrition
on the same hectarage. ...

A second principle in Southern Africa agricultural policy is to
value - not destroy -small-scale farmers and their indigenous
knowledge  systems (IKS). Just as diversity can replace fabricated
seed monoculture,  small-scale farmer innovation can also replace
industrial inputs. Zero  tillage, for example, is now recommended
for many crops, for it disturbs  the topsoil less. Annual plowing
exhausts the soil humus within 10 years  of the land first being
opened up (much faster in areas of former rain  forests). As humus
levels decline, there is loss of soil fertility, making it  more
susceptible to erosion. ...

An agricultural practice called integrated production and pest
management uses knowledge of life cycles of pests to control their
populations with appropriate crop rotation, timing of planting, and
use of natural predators. It includes land preparation, water and
soil  fertility management, and conservation of biological
diversity including  natural enemies of pests. Integrated pest
management emphasizes  arresting the trend of increased pesticide
dependence and recognizing  coexistence of pests. Begun in 1993 in
Southern Africa, it is in operation  in Malawi, Mozambique,
Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, with  active field programs for
maize and vegetables.

A third principle is to recognize that farmers can best solve their
own problems, for they are researchers, plant breeders, and seed
savers  in their own right. ... Small-scale farmers directing
research agendas have been successfully  pursued in Tanzania, and
the goal now is for rapid expansion of  this approach. Initially
targeting farmers in Arusha and Kilimanjaro  districts, the
SADC/ICRISAT pilot project received 100 research  requests from
farmers in 1999/2000. The Northern Zonal Agricultural  Research
Fund (NZARF) directed the requests to relevant Tanzanian  research
institutes. Thirty research projects were funded, reflecting well
the priorities of the farmers: improved multipurpose trees,
intercropping  of maize/pigeonpeas (black-eyed peas), use of local
resources as  mineral supplements for livestock, integration of
protein-rich fodder  crops, improved vegetable varieties for
lowland conditions, use of  indigenous cover crops to improve maize
yields, screening of natural  pesticides, and many more.64 Each
project was specific to a district or  part of a district; there
was no requirement that the research provide  valid or reliable
results for several districts, or a whole Tanzanian  region, and
certainly not for all of Tanzania.

The above three principles (food crop diversity, valuing
small-scale  production based on indigenous knowledge, farmers
solving their own  problems) are not simply theoretical
aspirations. They signify policies  being implemented in widely
varying projects throughout Southern  Africa. These approaches
demonstrate a reversal in thinking from  industrial agriculture
that reconstructs the ecology, plants, producers  and consumer
taste to fit the manufactured product of the global corporation,
all with the goal of increasing profit rates. Southern Africa
rejects that food production is most efficient on a world scale.
Local  seed breeders, government researchers, and environmental
NGOs in  Southern Africa claim the opposite: indigenous and locally
improved  multiple food varieties are the best food security,
providing nutritious  food suitable to local tastes from plants
that can withstand the vagaries  of local conditions and are highly
adapted to interaction with local  fauna.

*************************************************************
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

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