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4.38 pm
Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford): I thank my right hon. Friends for all the initiatives that they have taken in this matter and that they have conveyed to the House today.
Although I was very much of a sceptic before the Seattle talks began, I accepted and supported the Government's aims of trying to balance free trade with environmental and developmental concerns--in short, trying to make the World Trade Organisation work for the world's poor rather than, in Oxfam's words, being "loaded against the poor". However, when it became clear that Commissioner Lamy had entered into a stitch-up with United States negotiators on genetically modified organisms, I for one was relieved that the talks had failed, since such a deal would have been profoundly unethical, undemocratic and hugely damaging to developing countries.
The World Trade Organisation's attitude to genetically modified organisms goes to the heart of a rules-based system. What should take priority--the rules on free trade or those designed to protect people and the environment? Compromises are often desirable, but they are not always possible. Sometimes an absolute choice has to be made.
By common consent, the jury is out in Europe on GMOs. We cannot be sure that there are no long-term effects on animals or humans from eating them and we have a host of reasons for believing that they may have adverse effects on our environment. To their great credit, Labour Ministers have adopted the precautionary principle, after the previous Government's reckless leap into the dark. United Kingdom citizens have the right to say no to GMOs and to insist on accurate labelling and separation. In the United States, no such consumer rights
were developed alongside the new technologies. In Seattle it became clear that the United States was determined to use the WTO to threaten the rights of citizens and Governments worldwide to restrict trade in genetically modified organisms.
Earlier this year, as the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) recalled, the same US intransigence over the hierarchy of rules and their insistence on free trade above all else caused the breakdown of the talks on the biosafety protocol, which is the appropriate forum for a discussion of genetic engineering. GMOs raise health, environmental, social and economic issues that cannot and should not be dealt with in the WTO. The potential risks and impact of GMOs in the UK have been well rehearsed in the House and I do not propose to dwell on them, but the economic consequences for the developing world are less well known.
World trade in biotechnology is not about improving crops for home consumption, but about controlling the production of food for export markets, including from developing countries to rich consuming industrialised countries. Closely allied to the development of genetically modified crops is the business of patenting life forms, covered by the World Trade Organisation trade-related intellectual property agreement--TRIPS for short. Both are profoundly threatening to the three quarters of the developing world's population who live and trade or die on the land.
The development charity ActionAid has documented the threats in a recent report called "Crops and Robbers". Proper concern for safety and the environment has led the Government to limit the introduction of GM crops to farm-scale trials and monitoring for a minimum of three years. Within those three years, the biotech companies expect 550 million hectares--more than half of the GM crops planted worldwide--to be planted in developing countries. The lobbying of those companies, in concert with the United States, led to the collapse of the talks on the biosafety protocol, which was aimed at developing an agreement on the safe transfer, handling and use of GMOs.
The consequences for poor farmers in developing countries are profound. Seed saving is a way of life for 1.4 billion farmers around the developing world. Using GM patented seed means having to buy new every year. It means having to buy the relevant pesticides or herbicides and becoming enslaved to corporate agri-business. I shall share with the House the bizarre but true story of a farmer caught up in such agri-business. He grew his oilseed rape every year for 40 years. He sprayed the edges of his fields with herbicide that killed the weeds and any oilseed rape in the vicinity. Imagine his surprise when last year all the weeds died but the oilseed rape continued to grow. The farmer grew his crops from his own saved seed, but his neighbours were growing GM herbicide-resistant oilseed rape. He quickly realised that his crop had become contaminated with the GM crop.
Hon. Members might believe that the farmer had cause to complain to Monsanto. On the contrary, Monsanto sued him, demanding the return of the seeds or the crop containing the patented genes, plus punitive damages for illegally obtaining the seeds, plus the company's court costs. That is the nature of the biotech company that confronts the world's poorest farmers, yet the story that I
have related is not that of a poor South American or Indian farmer. He is a third generation Canadian farmer with a prairie farm. Percy Schmeiser is now counter-suing Monsanto for defamation and what he calls disregarding the environment. As he said, he did not watch his grandparents clear the land and build a farm to have the profits taken over by a big multinational. The world's poor farmers would share his sentiments, but they have no way of mounting such a legal challenge and defence.
In parallel with the loss of control for nation states and individual farmers over trade in GM crops comes a new threat: the extraction and patenting of individual genes, proteins and gene sequences. The south is the source of 90 per cent. of the world's biological wealth, yet industrialised nations hold 97 per cent. of all patents. Already corporate control extends over the world's staple crops through patents on forms of maize, potato, soya bean and wheat. The higher prices on patented seeds and accompanying royalties are likely to outweigh any possible benefit that genetically modified crops might bring to poorer farmers.
Even more alarming is the potential for substitution of whole crops in the laboratory. The 600,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana provide about 40 per cent. of their country's foreign exchange income. What would happen to the Ghanaian economy if the west no longer wanted cocoa? It could happen. Mars UK has just obtained two patents on the genes for cocoa flavour from west African cocoa and Dupont has a patent for a gene that can produce a substitute for cocoa butter.
I have limited my remarks today to aspects of TRIPS because of its central importance to food security and trade for developing countries. I believe--as do many non-governmental organisations such as ActionAid, Oxfam and the World Development Movement--that TRIPS should be amended to enable countries to exclude from patentability all genetic sources for food and agriculture. While the crucial distinction between invention and discovery should protect such sources at present, the bio-piracy cases, such as basmati rice, prove otherwise.
I urge my right hon. Friends closely to consider the evidence for such amendment because, as other speakers have noted today, these talks are part of the continuing round, not a new round. The collapse of the Seattle talks has given us much-needed breathing space. I very much welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's commitment to the reform of the WTO. The leading role of the UK Government is especially welcome, given our close links with the many developing countries in the Commonwealth.
Many of the reports from Seattle suggested opposing agendas between NGOs, and between NGOs and developing countries. I was not there, and although I am sure that there is some truth in that, I have met many NGOs in this country--particularly from the development field--and their conclusions on the way forward show a remarkable degree of consensus. I urge my right hon. Friends to continue the dialogue with them.
Ways must be found to make the WTO more transparent and more democratic. The growing voice of the poorest countries must be given due weight, and the review of the processes must include an assessment of the impact of the WTO agreements to date, including the Marrakesh decision, which has never been implemented.
New guiding principles--including sustainable development and poverty reduction--are required. Critically, the relationship between the WTO rules and international conventions and treaties on human rights and the environment--particularly biodiversity--must be clarified.
Mr. John Horam (Orpington):
I am glad that the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) referred to trade-related intellectual property rights, which are extremely important and can be discussed now, as they are a subject for review. There is also the advice from the sustainable development panel to take into account. Something can be done here and now, irrespective of what happened at Seattle, which is of immense importance to agriculture in the third world.
The approach that my hon. Friends and I who serve on the Select Committee on Environmental Audit have taken to these issues has been through the spectrum of sustainable development. That concept has become very chi-chi and acceptable in recent years, and has strengths and weaknesses, but in this context, it is highly relevant. We are looking not only at economic and trading questions, but particularly at social questions arising from the horrendous poverty in the low-income countries of the world and at the environmental damage that trade can do. It is particularly important to see these issues in that context.
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