By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Proprietary rights to commercial seed hybrid technology was a subject addressed during the Department of Justice (DOJ) and USDA hearing examining competition and regulatory issues in agriculture held in Ankeny, Iowa, on March 12, with global giant Monsanto, Inc. among the market’s biggest players under scrutiny.
The hearing, chaired by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder, examined whether a lack of competition among the world’s largest biotech seed companies - coupled with their alleged failure to share patented hybrid technologies - has led to higher seed prices and monopolies.
Farmers want Monsanto to share trait technology for their RoundUp Ready soybeans (RR1) with other seed companies in advance of the expiration of Monsanto’s proprietary right to their patent, in order for competing companies to prepare to market their versions of the popular seed, according to the American Soybean Assoc. (ASA).
“Technology and continued innovation in the seed industry are vital to the future survival of farming,” said ASA vice president Ray Gaesser, in a statement issued to coincide with the hearing. “The first commercial soybean trait patent to expire will be for RoundUp Ready soybeans in 2014, and patents on other soybean biotech traits will be expiring thereafter.
“AFA...supports enabling trait providers and seed companies to access and use, through agreements or other procedures that provide fair compensation, the data packages of a patented biotech trait for the purpose of preparing to register and commercialize seeds containing ‘stacks’ of new biotech traits along with traits already commercialized. ASA again supports and prefers a private sector approach to facilitate and govern this process. However, if an industry-led approach cannot be agreed upon, then a federal government approach may be necessary to ensure that both innovation and competition are facilitated.”
In company blogs, a letter to the American Farm Bureau Federation and during a phone conversation with Farm World, Monsanto indicated they have already publicly committed to supporting the availability of generic RoundUp Ready soybeans in a post-patent environment by maintaining the scientific and export regulatory estate for the trait through at least 2017.
Monsanto vice president of industry affairs, Jim Tobin, said that intellectual property protection is an important part of ensuring that investment in new products continues.
“Stable IP laws and policies provide inventors with incentive to develop new technologies for a designated period of time. Upon patent expiration, those inventions are available to interested parties to invest as they see fit,” Tobin stated.
Monsanto was pleased to participate in the conference, which represented a unique opportunity to highlight the investment the company and others continue to make on behalf of U.S. farmers, Monsanto spokesperson Lee Quarles told Farm World. “It’s very clear that competition within the U.S. seed industry is growing, and the fight to win the farmer’s business is intense. Monsanto remains committed to investing in new products for farmers that offer them more value.
“As the company that first introduced biotech soybeans to the market, we’re also the first company to have to deal with figuring out what to do next, and we’ve given it serious consideration. The first generation RoundUp Ready soybean trait was launched in 1996, and though we sold soybeans with the RoundUp Ready trait in our own seed brand, we also made the decision to license the technology broadly to other seed companies so they could use it in their own varieties.
“Now, the RoundUp Ready trait is so successful that farmers have chosen to plant soybeans that use the technology on nine out of ten acres in the U.S. Beginning in 2015, the RR1 trait will be available for use without royalty because all patents will have expired,” Quarles said, summarizing a company-issued statement.
Quarles said that as far as individual farmers are concerned, “we’ve stated that we will not enforce varietal patents on farmers who save RR1 soybean seed for their own use after the patent expires.”
Critics present at the conference who said regulators should seek new oversight authority to ensure that farmers and seed companies have open access to the RR1 gene when its patent expires were assured by Christine Varney, the Justice Department’s top official, that regulators would monitor the situation closely, according to the Associated Press.
“We need to support innovation, patent rights, and returns on investment, while allowing competition in both generic traits and new traits to thrive,” said the ASA’s Gaesser. “Farmers and all of society benefit when we achieve this balance.”
In addition to Vilsack and Holder, the meeting was attended by key federal and state legislators and industry leaders such as Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey and Christine Varney, Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. In all, around 650 attended the conference on competition and regulatory issues, according to the AP.
Additional USDA/DOJ workshops that will address competitiveness in the poultry, dairy and livestock industries are planned for later this year. According to USDA, the goals of the workshops are to promote dialogue and foster learning, as well as to listen to and learn from people involved in agriculture. Additional information about the workshops can be found at www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/ag2010/index.htm
For more about Monsanto’s position on the sharing of patented, proprietary hybrid seed technology, see their blog site at http://monsantoblog.com |
