‘Biopiracy’ fear looms over genetic stock

Date: 26/11/1998

By Myles Neligan

FOR centuries, the indigenous peoples living in the Bolivian Andes have cultivated “quinoa”, a high protein cereal which forms an essential part of their diet in an area where people don't have the money to buy commercially produced staples like rice or corn meal.

Through hundreds of years of selecting and improving the seeds, farmers have developed varieties specially adapted to survive in the harsh Andes.

No one owns the rights to the plant. Farmers do not have to pay a fee before they can plant quinoa. But this could change after a case of what campaigners call 'biopiracy'.

In 1994, two researchers from the University of Colorado were awarded a patent, giving them monopoly over male sterile plants of the traditional Bolivian “Apelawa” quinoa variety. They are expected to develop a high-yield variety of the plant which could then be sold to one of the US agrochemical giants. Bolivia's annual exports of one million ecu of quinoa to the US could be threatened if the company holding the patent launched a legal challenge.

Quinoa is one example of a growing number of cases where rich agrochemical or pharmaceutical companies in the industrialised northern hemisphere scour the third world looking for natural resources to exploit.

The biotech companies not surprisingly reject most of the green lobby groups' criticisms. They claim biopiracy only occurs when resources are obtained without paying a reasonable price or when the benefits of patenting are not shared with local populations.

In the case of the quinoa patent, the Colorado team have pledged to make their technology available to researchers in Chile and Bolivia. In others, firms have offered financial incentives to local populations to help them search for substances with marketable applications.