TERMINATOR technology: that鈥檚 what farmers are calling a breakthrough in
genetic engineering designed to prevent the seeds of agricultural crops from
germinating. They fear it could spell the end of the tradition in poorer
countries of saving seed from one season鈥檚 crop to replant the next.
Earlier this month, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and a Mississippi
seed firm, the Delta and Pine Land Company, were granted a patent for a
technique that can sterilise the seeds produced by most agricultural crops. They
expect the technique to be adopted within the next five years by all the major
seed companies, which have been looking for ways to prevent farmers from
recycling seeds from their crops for many years.
鈥淚t鈥檚 terribly dangerous,鈥� says Hope Shand of the Rural Advancement
Foundation International, a pressure group based in Canada. 鈥淗alf the world鈥檚
farmers are poor and can鈥檛 afford to buy seed every growing season. Yet they
grow 15 to 20 per cent of the world鈥檚 food.鈥�
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The technology depends on a promoter sequence from a gene called Late
Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) that activates the gene to which it
is attached only when the plant鈥檚 seeds are maturing. The researchers attached
the LEA promoter to a gene that produces a protein which prevents
germination. They inserted this into seeds. At the end of the growing season,
the promoter switches on this gene.
Melvin Oliver of the USDA鈥檚 labs in Lubbock, Texas, who invented the
technique, claims that seeds manipulated in this way will grow into healthy
plants that produce sterile seeds. He anticipates that it will be welcomed by
seed companies, who regard the replanting of seeds as theft of their
intellectual property. 鈥淥ur system is a way of self-policing the unauthorised
use of American technology,鈥� says Oliver. 鈥淚t鈥檚 similar to copyright
辫谤辞迟别肠迟颈辞苍.鈥�
Willard Phelps, a spokesman for the USDA, predicts that the new technique
will soon be so widely adopted that farmers will only be able to buy seeds that
cannot be re-germinated. The US government鈥檚 aim is merely to ensure the profits
that are made from its introduction are not excessive, he says.
But Camila Montecinos of the Centre for Education and Technology in Santiago,
Chile, which works with local farmers, is calling on governments to outlaw the
new technology. 鈥淭his is an immoral technique that robs farming communities of
their age-old right to save seed,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t should be banned.鈥�