Monsanto Gift May Boost Altered Foods
Monsanto’s pledge to allow the developers of a genetically modified rice to use any of the company’s patented technology for free could help convince the public that genetically modified foods can offer tangible benefits to consumers, analysts say, without costing the company a dime in lost sales.
Monsanto, a division of Pharmacia Corp., announced Thursday in the southern Indian city of Madras that it would grant licenses at no cost to the worldwide research community for advanced research, and noncommercial distribution, of the vitamin A-enriched rice.
The rice, which was developed by Swiss scientist Ingo Potrykus and a German counterpart, Peter Beyer, is advertised as a way to save millions of children in developing nations from going blind or dying from diseases such as diarrhea and childhood measles. It is named “golden rice,” because the extra beta carotene, or vitamin A, that’s been genetically engineered into the grain gives it a yellow hue.
The need is certainly there: Vitamin A deficiency weakens the immune system and is considered a factor in both blindness and the death of more than 1 million children each year. India has about 13 million blind people--approximately one out of every three blind persons in the world.
Charles Margulis, a spokesman for Greenpeace and an outspoken critic of biotechnology, cautions that at this point the gift is still mostly symbolic. “We don’t know if that rice is ever going to be available and, if it is ever viable, how long it’s going to take.”
Monsanto’s gift of the biotechnology, he added, costs the company nothing, since it has no plans to market genetically modified rice commercially, a point the company acknowledges.
Indeed, Monsanto holds only a portion of the patents used in developing the rice. Selling the rice, or giving it away as Potrykus wants to do, would require licensing all of the patented technology used in its production.
Monsanto hopes its decision will persuade the other companies who hold patents on technology used in the rice to grant their rights for free as well, said Monsanto spokesman Gary F. Barton.
Biotechnology industry analysts say that the trade-off of the patent rights is a small price to pay to change public perception about the benefits of genetically modified foods.
“Monsanto, as well as the rest of the biotechnology industry, knows that the way they can make the black clouds go away is to have products in front of the public that will create value for them,” said Sano Shimoda, president of Orinda, Calif.-based BioScience Securities.
The company’s first major products did little for consumers but helped make it cheaper and easier for farmers to produce crops, benefits that were hard to see at the dinner table. That gave critics of biotechnology an easy target.
Proponents contend that genetically altering crops to resist pests, drought or other adverse conditions may be the only way to ensure food security in the developing world, particularly in densely populated Asia, home to more than half of humanity.
But the technique of splicing genes from one organism onto another also has provoked fears of freak, unforeseen hazards to health and the environment, with many countries urging controls.
A couple of supermarkets have agreed to remove genetically modified products from their private-label products, and this week, Monsanto rival Novartis announced it had eliminated all genetically altered ingredients from its food products, including Gerber baby products, Ovaltine and Wasa crackers.
