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Honey bee publish details |
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written by-Anil K Gupta |
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Patent on Neem! Will It Deprive Indian Farmers of Right to Use It? |
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There has been a worldwide media campaign alleging that a patent filed by W R Grace & Company on a neem product and a process of extracting the storage-stable compounds will prevent farmers using neem as a source of home made pesticide.
There are several other issues that this controversy has raised, the most important being; Multinational Corpora-tions have usurped traditional knowledge; patents will lead to erosion of diversity of neem tree; neem seeds would become costly and thus get out of the hands of poor farmers; developing countries would be robbed of their rights to use neem tree as they deem fit, etc.
Some issues that have not been discussed are: Why governments of developing countries including India, which spent so much on manufacturing chemical pesticides or importing them from multinational corporations, did not spend adequately on research on developing herbal pesticides (particularly when so much research and development had been done in the country by public sector scientists)? Will not availability of neem-based pesticides, whether from MNCs or national companies, cut into the demand of environmentally hazardous chemical pesticides? Will not restrictions on production of neem-based products thus stimulate demand of chemical pesticides; Why should not small scale entrepreneurs be provided technology developed by public R&D to start neem based products locally to meet demands of small farmers at lower cost? If big irrigated farmers wanted to buy neem based pesticides from MNCs, so be it. What would be the impact of replacement of chemical pesticides in green revolution areas? Will that not lead to consumers having safer food to eat, devoid of residues of chemical pesticides? Who will gain if the demand for neem seeds or leaves goes up? There may be many other issues that can arise in this regard, but let us first see what the implications are for poor dry land farmers who grow neem.
Who grows neem trees and where?
Neem trees are grown much more widely in semi-arid and light soil regions. Though this tree grows well in Indo-gangetic plains with good irrigation systems, can not compete with more profitable trees such as mangoes, guavas or even eucalyptus etc. It grows fast and within a few years starts bearing fruits. It has not become a crop for agro-forestry systems as yet, but with increasing demand for its seeds, it might well become so providing an attractive economic option to disadvantaged dry farmers. During drought when most crops fail, neem tree survives well and in fact, its leaves are used as stress fodder for livestock.
Thus increase in demand for neem seeds from within the country or abroad will do only good to the environment as well as to the economy of dry farmers. There is no other crop that is so sturdy, requires so little inputs and yet offers so much economic gains. Provided of course that so-called well wishers of third world in USA do not succeed in killing the market for neem seeds from India and Africa. In any case do we hear about any opposition to export of sugar or cotton for use abroad?
Will excessive demand lead to erosion of neem diversity?
Neem tree produces seeds profusely and for its reproduction needs only a small fraction of these seeds. Given very low dormancy of neem seeds, these quickly germinate after the rains and die if not replanted or allowed to grow. Thus collection of neem seeds poses no danger to continuance of the diversity. There is one danger though that once commercial interests become dominant, a few selected germ plasm sources may be widely grown and may lead to genetic uniformity. This danger is not exclusive to neem alone but to all commercial crops grown on large scale, and it requires generic solution. However, studies by Dr Venkateswarulu at Central Research Institute of Dry Land Agriculture (CRIDA) have convincingly shown that there exists a great genetic diversity. Not only that, the scientists at CRIDA have cloned the elite neem trees successfully. This is an important breakthrough because it was seen that propagation by seeds stored over a longer period was not always so successful as by this method. Cross pollination of neem also made the task of getting true seed of particular kind more difficult. Clonal propagation of course accentuates the danger of genetic uniformity even more with all the attendant dangers. But this trade off is inherent, as said earlier, in any strategy to maximize returns per unit of land and other scarce inputs.
The point is that excessive collection of neem seeds is unlikely to lead to genetic erosion on a scale more than caused by environmental degradation. Since increase in demand of neem might lead to its cultivation on marginal and so called waste lands, if any thing, it might lead to increase in the diversity of neem by its cultivation in diverse ecological conditions.
Have only MNCs taken patents on neem products? Will Patents prevent farmers from growing neem trees or using it the way they wish?
Is it not strange that the entire campaign against patents on neem products was aimed against only one MNC whereas there are several other patents on Neem products not only by Indian scientists, companies but also other companies. For arguments sake one could argue that if patents were bad, how come these were bad only when taken by international companies and not by national companies or scientists? Leaving this issue aside for a moment, let us understand how does one get patent and what does it do to those who wish to use the source material, in this case neem tree and its products.
First of all, it must be stated unequivocally that every farmer in any part of the world is free to use neem in whichever way he/she wants. Any claim to the contrary is a case of misrepresentation. Inventions which are patentable include: any new product that is developed afresh; new methods to produce a known old product; and new use suggested for an old product made by new method or old known method. But the patent rights are restricted only to the new, non-obvious, and inventive step.
The use of neem extract, its seed or leaves or any other part of the plant as pesticide cannot be patented since such uses have been known for hundreds of years and are also acknowledged in many patent applications. Also, the seed itself - being a product of nature - is not patentable unless considerably modified (In many countries, instead of or in addition to) patenting, plant variety acts are provided to protect plant varieties. There can be no patent on azadirachtin. However, any synthetic analogue of a naturally occurring product is patentable because, it does not exist in nature in that form. Some of the patents which have been granted are for instance:
(i) Godrej Soaps - India - patent No.5298247, 1994 for water soluble, storage stable, and environmentally safe pesticide.
(ii) Trumo Corporation - Japan - patent No 4537774, 1985 for another method using hot water extract of neem bark for controlling tumours.
(iii) W R Grace and Company - US- patent No 4946681, 1990 for improving the storage stability of neem seed extracts containing azadirachtin.
(iv) W R Grace & Company - USA - patent No 5124349, 1992 for storage stable pesticide composition comprising neem seed extract. The major contribution was increasing the shelf-life stability of azadirachtin solution.
(v) The National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi - patent No. 5196197, 1993 for developing a reversible contraceptive based on neem extract.
(A more comprehensive list of patents till 1994 end on neem products will be published in the next issue.)
Should we argue here that National Institute of Immunology should let any MNC or national corporation commercialize the technology developed by it without any return and then when it needs funds, it should knock at the doors of insensitive bureaucrats in the corridors of power? Or Godrej Soaps should not develop a product which may compete with the chemical pesticides and thus save the environment a bit? It is a different matter that government of India’s policies are far more sympathetic to chemical pesticide industry, otherwise it would not have reduced customs duty on the import of chemical pesticides in the last budget. Not only that, it also did not provide registration to Indiara, a herbal pesticide developed by an entrepreneur based in Pune, for obvious reasons. What should an Indian company do if the domestic policies favour chemical pesticides? Should it not seek patents and then try international markets for its products? Incidentally, Indonesia had banned fifty percent pesticides used in paddy in 1987 and since then, paddy production has been increasing and consumption of pesticides decreasing.
Is there any reciprocity that national and international users of traditional and contemporary knowledge have towards communities and individuals generating and providing this knowledge?
It is obvious that if various users of neem had to identify the plant without drawing upon any clue from traditional knowledge they would have had to spend lot of time and resources. Availability of traditional knowledge certainly reduced their transaction costs. There is a strong case for national and international patent holders to share part of the profits accruing from the commercialization of their products with the providers of the knowledge. Article 8J of Convention on Biological Diversity clearly requires such a reciprocity. However, in this case the neem tree grows in many countries including India and knowledge about its uses also is widely shared. Therefore, no contribution can accrue to any one community or country. It can only be put in an international fund to support conservation of neem germ plasm as well as R&D by local communities and entrepreneurs for developing various products. It must however be understood that this contributions can arise only if profits are made. And profits can only be made if an entrepreneur has efficient technology, consumer demand and some protection from others not imitating or copying his/her formulations. Therefore, patents on products per se do not preclude the possibilities of communities benefiting from the international fund. It may however be added that situation is far more serious in the case of human drugs and unfortunately there is no hue and cry on that issue. Studies have shown that as many as 74 per cent of the plant derived human drugs are used for the same purpose for which native people discovered their use (Farnsworth, 1981). And yet, not a penny has ever gone to those communities. Similar is the case with improved varieties of fruits, vegetables and other food crops of which hybrids or other varieties have been developed by the large corporations.
The argument that improved varieties or neem products will be available to farmers and should therefore be considered as sufficient reciprocity is not tenable. Those who benefit will be either commercial farmers in the west or green revolution farmers in developing countries who grow crops which consume much of the pesticides. However, those who grow neem trees or collect its seeds and provide knowledge about its use are generally the farmers in rain fed regions and they will not benefit so much from this.
Why do not governments in developing country allocate more resources for research and product development based on indigenous knowledge and resources?
One of the first papers which renewed the interest of global community in neem was in 1962 by Dr Pradhan et. al. (Rao and Mani, 1993:106). It led to isolation and identification of the active principle, azadirachtin (Butterworth and Morgan, 1968, 1972, Zanno et. al. 1975). The properties of this compound as a growth regulator and reproduction-inhibitor in a number of insects were reviewed by Warthen (1979), Subramanyam (1990), Schumutterer (1990) many others. Rao and Mani (in the book edited by Ananathakrishnan and Raman, 1993) discussed at length how this compound has been used for insect control (pp.108-110). Koul lists products made of neem and highlights the pitfalls of relying on a narrow base of compounds as well. The list includes Margosan-O (W R Grace, USA), Azatin (Agrodyne, USA) Achook (Godrej Soap Pvt. Ltd. Bombay), Neemgold (SPIC Ltd. Madras), Replin (ITC Ltd. Hyderabad), and Margocide CK (Monofix Agro Prod. Ltd. Hubli, India). Larson (who also holds a patent on neem based pesticide) presented a paper on development of Margosan-O as a pesticide from neem seed at the Third International Neem Conference in Nairobi (Proceedings published in 1987, pp 243-250 in Koul, 1993). Narendra, one of my former students has recently set up a plant in Belgaum for producing a neem based pesticide using a stable form of this compound called ‘Rakshak’.
A major reason why many neem based products have not succeeded in the market-place is because they are relatively unstable when exposed to sunlight. Obviously, if a firm invests in research on this subject and seeks protection, should it be denied, even if that means no further research?
(To be concluded in the next issue)
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee, 6(3):6-8, 1995 |
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