"The Future of Food" - a rant*

So I watched the film The Future of Food today for Anth class. Well, I watched most of it. After being unable to check the reserved copy out of the media centre, I streamed about an hour and 20 minutes of the film before I had to go to work. But upon attempting to finish the film over my home computer's somewhat slower connection, I found myself frustrated and without closure - so if any of the following questions or remarks might be answered in the film's last 20 minutes, I'm sorry! I'm ill-informed.

I found that a large part of the film echoed the information and sentiments presented in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which we are also reading for this class. But one thing that I found truly interesting and disturbing that was not presented in Pollan's account was the issue of seed patents.

The ability to patent "life" in any form has been historically restricted in the U.S. on moral grounds. Now, normally I'm not big on pressing my morals on anyone, nor am I a big supporter of the U.S. limiting what its citizens can and cannot do. However. The film made me feel that there is perhaps some logic to the argument in this particular instance. With the advent of GMOs in the 1970s, the issue of patents for some "life products" (aka seeds) began to seem reasonable. So the U.S. patent office made it possible to obtain a patent for your seeds if you could prove that they were effectively different from others available. Now I get a little fuzzy with the logistics here, but I think that this phrase was interpreted loosely, in a manner that allowed one to patent any type of seed, as long as it did not already have a patent. So this big herbicide/seed company, Monsanto (which I keep wanting to call Montesano, like the WA county,) raided the U.S. stores of seeds, which are kept for biodiversity reasons. And they patented them. All of them. So much so that some wierd figure (I want to say 90%, but I really am not sure) of the varieties of seeds in the U.S. now "belong" to Monsanto.

And here's the kicker! Monsanto can basically go into any farmer's field, test it, and sue them if any of the seed found is identical to their patented "product." Which is absurd, because seeds are the most uncontainable product - it's like patenting hydrogen. "Oh, my, you have hydrogen in your immediate atmosphere, and I hold the patent. Pay me $100,000, and never have hydrogen in your proximity ever again!" I mean, how are the farmers supposed to stop stray seed from entering their fields when it is carried by the wind or animals? Is every farmer who doesn't use Monsanto seed expected to erect a fine-guage mesh structure around their property? Basically, Monsanto (and the U.S. Supreme Court, thanks to their ruling) are telling small farmers that they have no choice but to purchase seed from this large company, because no matter what they do, they will inevitably be in violation of patent laws.

After viewing the film and being thrown by this, I asked my roommate, Kim, what she thought. Kim is in her first year of Law School at the UW and is interested in intellectual property law... so of course she would know more about this issue! And she basically told me that yes, under the structure of patent laws, the Supreme Court's decision makes perfect (but unjust) sense. Because if you designed a toaster, but found out later that it was unintentionally the same one that had already been patented, you would be in the wrong. You would have to pay a fine, and would no longer be allowed to make a profit off of that kind of toaster by selling it. And that makes sense. But when applied to seeds, this logic falls to pieces... because, as previously described, nothing short of a latex bubble around your property will keep the patented seeds out.

My question is, couldn't someone have given the Supreme Court a lesson in plant biology? And what's more, could the court not take into consideration the framers' intent of patent laws, and conclude that they were not meant for application to biological products? I guess I cannot expect a bunch of gruff old men to change their minds concerning a process that has been working more or less problem free for two-hundred years or so... but I'd like to see these guys living in a bubble to make sure their flower gardens don't infringe on Monsanto's patents.