Gates Foundation-funded researchers are touting a new variety of GM rice as the solution to a bacterial blight threatening rice growers in Tanzania. The disease is new to Africa, at least in this form, and it threatens rice across the continent. The ironies of this situation are many. The blight probably came from China via a Chinese agribusiness that was offering "improved" rice seeds. Meanwhile, solutions to bacterial blights already exist in the form of sustainable agroecology practices but these are being ignored. Independent Science News

 

 

The European Patent Office (EPO) has rejected an opposition filed against a BASF patent on watermelons with bushy growth habit. No Patents on Seeds! filed the opposition because the patent is not inventive and patents on conventionally bred plant varieties are prohibited. The bushy growth of the plants was a random occurrence and, according to the patent description, the plants were simply a discovery in a home garden. Their advantage: less land is needed for cultivation. The EPO granted the patent in 2021 as the patent holder had applied an additional well established method to reduce the number of kernels. Clearly, neither the applied method nor the detection of the bushy growth habit is based on an invention. Christoph Then of No Patents on Seeds! said: “The EPO decision is in direct contradiction to the law and to the basic principles of the patent system. No one can claim an invention if a discovery is combined with well known methods and the results are not surprising. The prohibitions in regard to patentability of conventional bred plants are severely violated. This decision is setting an extreme precedent in regard to life patents.” No Patents on Seeds!

 

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