Science for Peace

Bulletin

May 2005

Volume 25, Issue 2

Terminators Galore!

Joe Cummins

The author is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario.

In Canada, the Seed Sector Review advisory committee issued a report

calling for changes to legislation to (A) collect royalties on

farm-saved seeds, (B) compel farmers to buy officially certified seed,

and (C) terminate the right of farmers to sell common seed. The report

was financed by the Agriculture Ministry at a cost of nearly a million

dollars to the Canadian taxpayers but essentially rubber-stamped the

demands of multinational agricultural corporations (1). The onerous

licensing requirements of the biotechnology industry are to be extended

to all seeds, imposing a form of serfdom on any remaining independent

farmers. In the future it is likely that even home gardeners will face

the loony corporate payments for those willing to spy on neighbors and

report covert seed activity. We may be entering a time when the Royal

Canadian Mounted Police are required to raid grow operations such as a

row of radishes in a backyard garden.

The development of "terminator" technology goes hand in hand with the

corporate move to control production and use of seeds. Terminator

technology is the use of genetic engineering to produce seeds that can

be used only once. The progeny of such seeds would either produce no

flowers or produce seeds that provide grain or oil but cannot germinate

to produce as new plants. In other words, terminator blocks viable seed

production, production of pollen or ovule or the production of flowers.

The first terminators were developed by the United Sates Department of

Agriculture (USDA) and corporate interests, and that technology was

patented jointly by the corporation and USDA. As in Canada, the

regulator of genetically modified (GM) crops also acts as an advocate

and commercial developer of such crops (a clear conflict of interest).

The first terminator patent was granted to USDA and The Delta and

Pineland Corporation (later joined to Monsanto Corporation) in 1999.

That patent provoked a flurry of opposition both on the basis of the

fundamental right of farmers to save seed and on the scientific ground

that the genetic changes might harm those consuming the crops. In

response to those concerns Monsanto Corporation backed off from

immediate production of terminator seeds. But in spite of that action a

great deal of government sponsored research in the U.S. has focused on

development of terminator technology to provide financial benefits for

corporations.

Beginning in 1999, the Institute of Science in Society in London,

England has distributed a number of reports by Dr. MaeWan Ho and myself.

In those reports we described the genetic technology of the original and

later biotechnology inventions (2,3,4,5,6,7). The basic design of the

constructions has been to prevent reproductive tissue from developing in

a way that allows the seed producer to maintain fertile lines that can

be maintained but also trigger the production of commercial seed lines

that cannot produce pollen or eggs, or produce lines that lack flowers.

The genes used to produce such lines usually involve reproductive cello

ablation (cell suicide genes) using toxins such as barnase ribonuclease

that digests cellular RNA, diptheria toxin or excess phytohormone

production in the reproductive tissue. In some cases anti-sense genes

have been used to block reproductive cells from maturing. Anti-sense

genes are complementary copies of the RNA gene messages governing

reproductive cell maturation forming double stranded RNA that is

recognized as an invading virus by the plant cell and destroyed.

During the 1990s a startling new discovery in plant molecular genetics

led to the identification of homeotic genes that govern the pathways

leading to cell differentiation. These specify proteins produced by

short stretches of DNA called MADS-boxes. These are the regions

controlling transcription of the genes involved in formation of

reproductive tissue, leaves, roots and branches that govern plant

development (8). That discovery has led to a flood of inventions

employing the MADS-boxes transcription factors to control flowering and

gamete production as terminators in trees and in crops. Steven Strauss

of the US Forest Service in Oregon has been field testing poplar trees

modified with cell suicide genes to eliminate flowering and plans to

extend that system to shade trees. Finnish researchers at Sopanen

University are developing this for sterile silver birch (9). Along with

concerns about the cell suicide toxins and their impact on animal life,

the sterile trees must be propagated asexually and thus lack genetic

diversity. This renders them sensitive to attack by emerging pathogens

and without a reservoir of diversity to mitigate the attack of the novel

pathogen. A flood of patent applications has begun to appear for control

of flowering or sexual development in both evergreen trees and crop

plants (10).

A flood of terminator trees and crops has been developed using

government funding and in some cases by government researchers. The main

scientific objection to such terminators has been the introduction of

untested and hazardous toxins such as cell suicide toxins. As well the

technology would result in genetic uniformity in forest expanses and in

crop lands rendering the trees and crops likely susceptible to plagues

resulting from the spread of emerging pathogens because the forests and

crops lack the reservoir of genetic diversity needed to counter novel

pathogens. The inventions will drive farmers and foresters into serfdom

at the behest of corporations and their lackeys in the government

bureaucracy.

Is it too late to terminate the terminators? It is not too late, but

once they begin to crowd out natural trees and crops it will be too

late. What can be done? We will soon have to have an international

convention to limit use of terminators. In the meantime it is wise to

alert the public to the extensive public funding of technologies that

threaten the farm community and public alike and benefit corporations

and their stockholders exclusively.

References

1. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, "The report of the seed sector

advisory committee 2004." http://www.seedsectorreview.com/reports-e.html

2. Ho, MW and Cummins J. "Chronicle of an Ecological Disaster Foretold."

ISIS Report, 20 February 2003; also Science in Society 2003, Spring, 18,

26-27.

3. Ho, MW. "Terminator technologies in new guises." ISIS News 3,

December 1999.

4. Cummins J. "Terminator gene product alert." ISIS News 6, September 2000.

5. Ho, MW, Cummins J and Bartlett J. "Killing fields near you:

Terminator crops at large." ISIS News 7/8, February 2001.

6 Ho, MW and Cummins J. "Terminator patents decoded." ISIS News 11/12,

October 2001.

7. Cummins, J. and Ho, MW, "New terminator crops coming."

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

8. Cummins, J. "View from MADS house." http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

9. Cummins, J. and Ho, MW. "Terminator Trees." http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

10. Cummins, J. "Lurking terminators." (in preparation).

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