Corporations patent community-bred seeds by altering a few genes, an act communities call biopiracy

Evidence

Imagine your ancestors had composed a song hundreds of years ago. It was sung at family celebrations and was familiar to every child. As it was passed to each generation, it was changed a little bit, but it was still the family song. But then one day, a music company came to a family event and recorded the song. Before long, a representative of the company came to your family, holding a piece of paper that said the company now owned the song, because it had changed one note in the song and claimed a copyright on the “new” song. The company said that your family must pay every time you sang the song, because you were using the company’s property. The police officer who came with the company rep backed up the company’s position, saying that the government would force you to pay. … Seem ridiculous? Yet this is exactly parallel to what happens with plants and seeds in a globalized world. Corporations such as W. R. Grace go into Indigenous communities, take seeds that are the product of generations of breeding, change a small number of genes through genetic engineering, and then claim patents on the seeds, the same way that patents are taken on new forms of windshield wipers or coffee makers. The corporations claim the knowledge of how to produce these seeds as “intellectual property.” But the communities who developed the seed call it “biopiracy.” Much of the struggle against biopiracy has taken place in India. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1460

Categorization

• SEED: The family-song copyright analogy is a ready-made classroom hook for teaching biopiracy — a vivid lesson-opening narrative in what is otherwise an economic-justice argument.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing note that enclosure makes private property from what was freely shared — the seed patents are the living-organism form of enclosure. — connects to: Corporate privatization of water and seeds erodes local communities’ decision-making power — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 223; Corporate optimization creates both new species and new precarities — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 2370; The Scientific Revolution’s death of nature licensed nature’s manipulation — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 761

Broader Connections

• Corporate optimization creates both new species and new precarities #complicates (0.75) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 2370
• The Scientific Revolution’s death of nature licensed nature’s manipulation #qualifies (0.72) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 761