1980 US Supreme Court Ruling

modification can be targeted so that a transgene replaced the equivalent native gene or so that genes were "knocked out"-made ineffective by removal or disruption. A third technique was called "sperm mediated transfer." Genetically modified sperm was used as a vector for introducing foreign DNA into the egg. It had obvious attractions as artificial insemination of livestock and poultry was routine. These were the kinds of techniques being patented as fast as the GMO industry lawyers could file patent applications.!?

1980 US Supreme Court Ruling The Rockefeller Foundation's decades long nurturing of the field of molecular biology, its financing of the project for sequencing of genomes and the development of cloning, had led biotech giants such as Monsanto or Cargill to spend huge sums of money to genetically modify animals. The companies were focussed on one goal: patents and license rights to the results. This constituted a radical and highly controversial arena for the battle for patenting life.

The door had first been opened wide to recognition of such patents by the US Supreme Court. In 1980, the United States Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, declared that "anything under the sun that is made by man" is patentable. The case concerned the patenting of genetically engineered bacteria that eat oil sludge. In 1987, the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a pronouncement of the patentability, in principle, of nonhuman multi-cellular organisms that were not naturally occurring. It was followed by a landmark patent on the so-called "Harvard mouse" which was engineered to be susceptible to cancer. IS

Monsanto was not alone in attempting to control entire animal genetic seed lines. In July 2006, Cargill Corporation of Minnesota, the world's largest agriculture trading company, and one of the dominating firms in beef, pork, turkey and broiler production and processing, applied for a patent, no. US 2007/0026493 AI, with the US Patent and Trademark Office. The application was titled, "Systems and Methods for Optimizing Animal Production using Genotype Information;' and the application stated its purpose was to "optimize animal production based on the animal genotype

information."19 Cargill had been engaged in a joint venture with Monsanto, Renessen Feed & Processing, near Chicago, to use advanced breeding techniques and transgenics for patented sorts of feedgrains, oilseeds and other crops.20

With stealth, system, and a well-supported campaign of lies and distortions, the four major GMO agribusiness giants-Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont and Dow-were moving towards the goal once dreamed of by Henry Kissinger as ultimate control: If you control the oil, you can control nations; if you control food, you control people:'

The relentless pursuit of global control over oil had been the hallmark of the Bush-Cheney Administration. Few realized that pursuit of Kissinger's second goal, control over food, was also well advanced and at a dangerous point for the future of the global population. Perhaps the most effective tool in the effort of the powerful and arrogant elites behind the spread of GMO agribusiness was their calculated cultivation of the dangerous myth that "science:' in the abstract, is always "progress." This naIve popular belief in the idea of scientific progress as axiom had been one of the essential tools in the process of taking control of world food as the end of the first decade of the new century neared.

Notes

1. Monsanto Corporation, Monsanto Company to Acquire Delta and Pine Land Company for $1.5 Billion in Cash, Press Release, 15 August 2006, in http:// monsanto.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item =211. 2. Andrew Pollack, "Monsanto Buys Delta and Pine Land, Top Supplier of Cotton Seeds in US", The New York Times, 16 August 2006. 3. See Chapter 12, endnote 9 for details. 4. Peter Costiglio, untitled email reply to author, 12 February 2007, and " 9 February 2007. 5. See Chapter 12, endnote 12. 6. Cited in Lucy Sharatt, "The Public Eye Awards 2006: Delta & Pine Land", Ban Terminator Campaign, http://www.evb.ch/cm_data/NOM -DELTAPINE.pdf. 7. United Nations Development Program, The Convention on Biological Diversity, Fourth meeting, Granada, 23-27 January 2006, Potential Socio-economic Impacts of Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (Gurts) on Indigenous and Local Communities, ii, Submissions from Indigenous and local communities, Indigenous Peoples of Cusco, Peru, http://www.biodiv.org. 8. Ibid. 9. F. William Engdahl, "Monsanto Buys 'Terminator' Seeds Company", Financial Sense Online, 28 August 2006, http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2006/0828.html. 10. Woodrow Wilkins Jr., "D&PL Storm Losses Top $1 Million", Delta Democrat

Times, 30 August 2005. 11. Matthew Dillon, "And We Have the Seeds: Monsanto Purchases World's Largest Vegetable Seed Company", The Seed Alliance, http://www.seedalliance.org/ index.php?page=SeminisMonsanto, 24 January 2005. 12. Ibid.

13. Carey Gillam, "Crop King Monsanto Seeks Pig-Breeding Patent Clout': Reuters, 10 August 2005. 14. Jeff Shaw, "Monsanto Looks to Patent Pigs Breeding Methods': New Standard, 18 August 2005, http://newstandardnews.net. 15. Ibid. 16. Carey Gillam, op. cit. 17. Gene Watch UK, Techniques for the Genetic Modification of Animals, http://www.genewatch.org.

18. Max F. Rothschild, Patenting of Genetic Innovations in Animal Breeding and Genetics, Center for Integrated Animal Genomics, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, http://www.poultryscience.orglpba! 1952-2003/2003/20030/020Rothschild.pdf, 2003. 19. US Patent and Trademark Office, US Patent Application Publication, Systems and Methods for Optimizing Animal Production using Genotype Information, Pub. No. US 200710026493 AI , Washington, D.C., 1 February 2007. 20. Cargill Corporation website, http://www.cargill.com/about/organization/ renessen.htm.