India outraged as US company wins patents on rice

By Luke Harding, The Guardian (London), Thursday 23 August 2001

The decision to give an American company patents on three strains of basmati rice has provoked an uproar in India, where angry MPs have disrupted parliament and accused the coalition government of selling out to foreign interests.

The US patent and trademark office has granted three patents to RiceTec of Texas. Four years ago RiceTec made sweeping attempts to register basmati as a trademark, but later it withdrew several of its patent applications in the face of overwhelming opposition.

But last week the patent office allowed it to register three hybrid versions of basmati—Texmati, Jasmati and Kasmati. It produced the varieties by crossbreeding basmati seed with American long-grain rice.

RiceTec was also given permission to claim that its brands are superior to basmati.

The ruling has caused consternation in India, where basmati rice has been growing for centuries in the foothills of the Himalayas. Basmati, which is long grained, soft textured and has an aromatic flavour, is exported in huge quantities to Britain from India and Pakistan.

The Indian government insisted yesterday that the ruling would not affect India's lucrative basmati exports to America. But other campaigners say the case shows how western corporations are using the World Trade Organisation's oppressive patent laws to exploit poor farmers in the developing world.

The British charity ActionAid said: There is growing concern that corporations are taking advantage of traditional Indian crops developed over thousands of years by farmers, without any recompense for the poor people who do all the work.

We still remain concerned that there could be a threat to [India's] export markets. The fact is that this company is intent on marketing its basmati and is trying to get it into British supermarkets.

ActionAid has launched a campaign against bio-piracy - multinationals taking out patents on crops that grow in poor countries.

But other campaigners said last night that the ruling amounted to a victory for India, since RiceTec had been prevented from passing off its own products as basmati.

The farmers have won, said Vandana Shiva, of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in New Delhi.

The right of the third world not to have its biodiversity taken away and sold back to it has been upheld.

But India's upper and lower houses have been rocked by the affair. Opposition MPs surged into parliament shouting slogans, forcing an adjournment.

They accused the government, led by Hindu nationalists, of caving in to foreign pressure.

Balbir Punj MP said: The government has claimed that our losing the basmati case will have no bearing on exports. If it has no bearing on exports why should we fight the case?

The prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has warned that there should be no misappropriation of the developing world's biological and genetic resources.

Yesterday the US patents office confirmed that RiceTec's attempts to patent basmati had been thrown out. RiceTec had argued that basmati was merely a generic term, even though India exports more than 6m tonnes a year.

RiceTec's chief executive, Amberish Diwanji, said the company had spent 10 years developing its own rice varieties and had filed patents only to protect them. He said he was surprised by the flap the applications had caused.