"Considering this long history of crop improvement given to us by our patrimony, it seems totally inappropriate that GMO patent holders claim all rights for newly developed GMO varieties, although they have just done a minor alteration to a long and well-developed crop. Their claim is tantamount to saying that by applying a rust resistant finish to a car, one has re-invented the automobile."

This excellent piece is a response to an opinion piece carried by the Bangkok Post entitled "Fueling a new 'Green Revolution'?", in which Andrew Roberts argued that Thai farmers had benefited immeasurably from the Green Revolution, which saved them from their mere subsistence organic production, and that GM technologies offered a similar leap forward and were just as worthy of a fair trial. Roberts' article can be found on the BioThai website: http://www.biothai.org
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Progress pre-dates Green Revolution
MICHAEL COMMONS (Bangkok)
Perspective
Bangkok Post, 25 Oct 2004
http://www.biothai.org/cgi-bin/content/news/show.pl?0387

I respect and appreciate your forum on GMOs, but wish to address inaccuracies in Mr Andrew Roberts' piece published in the Perspective section of October 17. For one, Thailand and Thai farmers have been producing large surpluses of rice and exporting rice for hundreds of years. The Bowring Treaty, which led to greatly increased exports of rice, was signed in 1856. Before the Green Revolution this was done almost entirely without the use of synthetic fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides, and hybrid species. So to paint agriculture in Thailand before the 1960s as subsistence agriculture is far from accurate.

Another false impression given by the piece is that organic agriculture is expen-sive and low yielding. I have interviewed a number of organic farmers in Yasothon and Chiang Mai, certified by ACT, who stated that they have greater yields per rai since making the switch to organic agriculture. If verification were needed one could look at ACT records. They also have much lower investment costs.

They use a combination of manure, green manure, compost, and liquid fermentations to fertilise their fields and only rarely use herbal preparations for pests if at all. Almost all of these materials can be produced from on-site resources, such as the manure of their cows, rice straw, weeds, and organic kitchen waste. This greater yield refers only to the main crop, Thai Jasmine Hom Mali rice, and does not even account for the many other benefits, such as fish from the rice fields, richer soil, better quality grain, improved health, and a healthier environment.

This piece also conveys that farmers were not making important developments or agricultural progress before institutional agriculture research was born. Farmers since the beginning of agriculture until now have selected and bred for desirable properties. Compare the size of a cob of corn with the wild corn ancestor seedpod. This development was done by generations of farmers in the new world before Columbus set foot on soil there and before the Green Revolution was even a dream in anyone's head. Indo-European farmers developed wheat, and Asian farmers, including Thais, developed rice to bring us these valuable grains today.

Considering this long history of crop improvement given to us by our patrimony, it seems totally inappropriate that GMO patent holders claim all rights for newly developed GMO varieties, although they have just done a minor alteration to a long and well-developed crop. Their claim is tantamount to saying that by applying a rust resistant finish to a car, one has re-invented the automobile.

I have not addressed any of the risks that GMOs pose to the Thai economy, human health, the environment, and Thai farmers. I look forward to reading an essay addressing these issues in your forum in the future.

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