The Rural Voice, 1988-12, Page 23union (UPOV) to protect their plants,
and breeders within UPOV are often
reluctant to share germ plasm with
non-UPOV countries.
Canadian breeders are also vul-
nerable to piracy. UPOV members do
not recognize the rights of non-UPOV
nations, and if a UPOV member pir-
ates a variety from a non-member, the
union will recognize the member's
rights. As Canadian breeders are also
forbidden the right to patent plants in
Do we trust that companies given the
right to "own" life will make respon-
sible decisions regarding that life?
History offers no clear answers.
Certainly in the past several decades
the general public's mistrust of large
corporations has grown. In the name
of profit, some corporations have
knowingly sold dangerous products
and polluted water and land. Yet
other corporations have made efforts
above and beyond profit-making.
The marketplace can be a powerful tool to change corporate
attitudes ... Where this sort of market control fails is when
consumers don't understand what is going on.
the U.S., private breeders seek protec-
tion by selling the rights to a new
variety to U.S. companies, who will
then apply for patent protection.
Another issue in this mess con-
cerns the fate of breeding programs
financed by governments. Public
breeding programs are generally
biased toward public good. Mooney
writes that "public breeders seem
better able to balance the sometimes
divergent needs of producers and con-
sumers for the greater benefit of both."
There is concern that public breeding
programs might be disbanded by a
government eager to cut costs and
appeal to private enterprise.
This has already happened. In
August of 1987, the British govern-
ment sold that country's Plant Breed-
ing Institute and National Seed Devel-
opment Organization to Unilever, an
Anglo -Dutch consumer chemical
company. This announcement was
greeted with dismay by the scientific
community. Unilever had acquired
the legal rights to all plants bred by
the public sector in Britain.
Dr. Leisle says it will be a long
way down the road before this would
happen in Canada, but he does suspect
that it is part of the overall evolution
of plant breeding. In the meantime,
PBR will return needed revenue to
public breeding programs and will
diminish the need for plant patenting.
Issues like PBR are notoriously
hard to sort out because much more
than facts are involved. At the heart
of this issue is how much influence we
want private industry and the market-
place to have in shaping our future.
The marketplace can be a power-
ful tool to change corporate attitudes.
The simple fact that corporations will
not make what is not wanted gives
people a great deal of power. The
demand for environmentally safe
pesticides, for example, is directing
research towards biologicals and more
efficient, short-lived chemicals.
Where this sort of market control
fails is when consumers don't under-
stand what is going on. When one set
of consumers stops buying a product,
corporations sometimes direct it to
another group with less experience.
Unsafe or obsolete technology reject-
ed by the First World is sometimes
transferred to the Third. It is possible
that any harmful effect of PBR could
be exported to nations where the
population makes less noise.
In the end, PBR will probably
come to Canada. Dr. Leisle is not sure
that it can be stopped, and points out
that indirect PBR already exists here.
Plant breeders at the universities of
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Guelph, and
Alberta already collect royalties. The
process is roundabout and violations
would be messy to deal with, but the
essential protection already exists.
PBR, Dr. Leisle says, would tie up
the loose ends and put mechanisms in
place to deal with legal violations.
For him and many other plant breed-
ers, PBR is a non -issue. The govern-
ment should put it in place and let
breeders get on with the process of
breeding better plants.
It remains to be seen whether the
new government will agree with that
assessment.0
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DECEMBER 1988 21