ENGINEERINGNET.EU – Monsanto, known for the controversial herbicide Roundup, has received a patent on 'severed' broccoli. Contrary to comments in the (social) media, the patent does not cover all conventionally bred broccoli, but a specific variety that was bred using conventional cross-breeding and selection methods, with the aim to make harvesting easier (with a longer stalk and less leafs). The new patent covers the plants, the seeds, the 'severed broccoli head' and a 'plurality of broccoli plants .. . grown in a field of broccoli'.
In fact, the patent was granted to Seminis, a company acquired by Monsanto in 2005 and that was originally owned by the Mexican billionaire Alfonso Romo (in that time also owner of Mexico’s largest cigarette company, Ciagarrera La Modena). Romo founded Seminis in the early 1990s, because 'he noticed that there was little attention being paid to the ‘minor crops’ of the vegetable seed industry'.
It is not the first time a patent was granted on the properties of plants that were developed using conventional methods such as crossbreeding and selection. On 8 May for instance, a similar patent was granted to Syngenta for a classically bred red pepper with insect resistance and there are also patents pending for other improved crops such as tomato and melon. Currently, there are already 900 patents on animals and 1,800 patents on plants. Thousands are reported to be in preparation.
The European Parliament as well as the German Parliament have both been highly critical of such patents. Just recently, two millions of signatures were collected in a petition calling for a prohibition of patents on conventional breeding.
Critics mainly question the possibility to grant patents on what they call 'properties that just occur in nature'. They find it socially unacceptable that natural properties of crops can become the property of just one company or organization.
By obtaining patents multinationals like Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta more and more monopolise the worldwide seed and food production, they claim. Farmers have to pay high(er) prices for these improved seeds and when patented plants accidentally cross with other plants – in open fields for instance – the patent holder can even sue farmers for patent infringement.
On the other hand smaller seed producers no longer can use patented seeds to develop new varieties and are pushed out of the market. This leads to a decline in biodiversity, critics fear.
(BB/LH)
