The May 18 notification, among others, contends that the license providers of GM seed will not have any say on the choice of whom to give a license and anyone fulfilling the criteria would be eligible. It also capped the ‘trait value’ (equivalent of license or royalty fee) for all new genetically modified seed technologies at 10 percent of the maximum sale price. The fee would be capped for the first five years from the time the technology is commercialized in India, after which it will be lowered at 10 per cent each year. This was in addition to the retail sale price of Bt.Cotton seeds, which has already been regulated by the government.

It needs to be put in perspective that King Cotton is the only crop in which GM technology is permitted for commercial use in the country. Mahyco Monsanto Biotech Ltd, a subsidiary of the US based seed giant Monsanto has given licenses to fifty domestic companies to produce these seeds for distribution to farmers. BT. cotton had spread to cover 95 per cent of the cotton area in India with growers witnessing a substantial surge in productivity in their areas, though the economic returns had been eroded by periodic hike in seed prices and the hefty royalty payment the seed companies had to disburse to the patent holder Monsanto.

In less than ten days of its notification, the Government had to freeze its new conditions on GM seed technology, though it had not reversed its line ministry’s move while placing the new guidelines in the public domain for 90 days to take any action after that. Meanwhile, a 20 strong Committee of experts in the United States (US) National Academies of Science announced in the third week of May the results of its meticulous trawl of three decades and scientific studies for “permanent evidence of adverse health effects directly attributable to consumption of foods derived from genetically engineered crops” and it found none! Instead, the Committee uncovered evidence that GM crops have the potential to bestow substantial health benefits.

GM crops use, the Committee noted, was to bring generally possible economic outcomes for farmers—by decreasing crop losses and insecticides use while providing food that was no less safe than conventional food”. But this finding is as it should be because the US is the principal patron of the GM food, while the continental Europeans remain skeptical about its wholesome impact on human health! It is small wonder emerging economies like India too remain in doubt about GM food efficacy as it demonstrated by putting a moratorium on Bt.brinjal commercialization a couple of years ago. But India has seldom been in any denial mode on the application of GM technology for non-food crops such as cotton to which it signaled its nod a couple of years ago in the wake of reported large number of suicides by cotton growers due to the uneconomical cultivation of cotton.

Since then, Monsanto began purveying GM cotton seed Bollgard I a few years ago after kicking up row over its entry and establishment, the relationships between cotton-growers across the country and the main seed company with its cohorts of licensors that entered into agreement with it for sale of such seeds, remain taut. As the sweep and coverage of GM cotton crop spread across the main cotton-growing States, the seed-suppliers did not deem it wrong to hike the price periodically under the alibi that they had invested heavily in these productivity-multiplier seeds and that they must perforce recoup the cost through regular revision in its sale price as also the royalty the main company receives from its franchisee holding the patent rights! An exasperated government and the frustrated farmers had been left with little option other than reminding the patent holders that they cannot go on milking their patents in perpetuity lest the livelihood security of millions of growers depending on this crop should be wrecked with most of them ending up in rack and ruin. So when asked to reduce Bt cotton seed prices by 74 per cent, Monsanto’s instant reaction was to threaten to quit India with scarcely any deference to the laws of the land or the farmers’ inalienable rights to get their input like seed at affordable price. In fact, the earlier system of using from their own harvest the seeds for subsequent sowing is no longer the option to farmers as the bt.cotton seeds are what are described as terminator seeds and for each season fresh seeds need to be bought and sown!

As the livelihood security of the domestic farmers is in danger, the government cannot sit by idly to leave market forces to determine the best of outcome. Hence the May 18 notification which is construed as a sort of “compulsory licensing, as the innovator has no choice but to part with his technology” by the seeds giants who see an unglamorous halt to their vaulting ambition in reaping continuing royalty even by driving the growers into penury and irredeemable misery.

The late Murasoli Maran of DMK during the NDA-I under Vajpayee’s enlightened leadership could wrest an amendment to the Trade-Related Intellectual Property rights (TRIPs) in the 2001 Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. Accordingly, he was instrumental in incorporating a clause for compulsory licensing of patent-protected technology in products to meet “national emergencies or for public non-commercial use, so that developing countries with a strong base in generics and formulations could supply these medicines at inexpensive price to their citizens and those so less endowed in other countries. Examples include free supply of expensive antiretroviral to impoverished HIV sufferers in developing countries. In April 2013, India’s apex court spurned the Swiss pharma Novartis claim of its drug Glivec (imatinib mesylate)to cure one of the most common blood cancers for patent right, arguing that it was just a modification of an already existing drug. That case set a unique precedent for the global big pharma companies to conduct themselves responsibly and helped improve access to life-saving medicines in the developing world by demonstrating that patient health needs trump commercial and pecuniary considerations!

Going by this precedent there is nothing outrageous if the Modi Sarkar prescribed a sort of compulsory licensing on GM technology purveyors particularly those in the vital seed business so that the farmers are not unduly fleeced in public interest. The Prime Minister Modi can take a leaf out of Vajpayee’s open book as the latter backed his Minister of Commerce & Industry Murasoli Maran to make a pitch on amendment to TRIPS so that nations less endowed don’t trip on the mines and maze of legalese that the WTO has come to symbolize.

It is time Modi Sarkar demonstrated its cast-iron resolve in resisting all attempts to foist a seed regime that is inimical to the fundamental interest of farmers who toil in the soil to reap a reasonable return for their hard labour, sweat and focused efforts with no major help from the state or by the elements which play truant quite often than not. Make those who invent these technologies to be humane enough not to hit the poorest of the poor where it hurts them most. (IPA Service)