WEBVTT

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[music]

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[music]

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It\'s the world\'s first national park. And
each year, millions of people come here

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just to gaze at the wildlife and geysers.

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[music]

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Now Yellowstone has a new attraction, the tiny
microorganisms that actually live in these boiling waters.

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Anything that can live at that
temperature is of interest

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to corporations that have to do things at
high temperatures, such as clean equipment,

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such as tan leathers.

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To the biotechnology industry, every
creature on earth is a source of DNA

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to engineer into commercial products.
Nothing is off limits.

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Diversa Corporation made a deal
to remove living organisms

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from Yellowstone, develop
them into products,

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patents them, and a royalty
would come back to the park

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from any moneys that were made for that.

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Activists took the park service to court. They said the national
parks shouldn\'t allow the commercialization of creatures

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in their care. We think it\'s
the first of many deals

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on our national lands allowing
pieces to be removed, developed,

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commercialized, patented and sold.

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[music]

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When the World Trade Organization
met in Seattle, 50,000 people

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turned out to stop it. They didn\'t want to give
corporations more power over the environment,

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our communities, and the food supply.

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Globalization of agriculture,
globalization of trade,

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globalization and authority
threatens all of us,

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it\'s already gone too far.

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Well, where is our food coming from? Not coming
from the family farmers and the good ranchers.

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It\'s coming from the factory farms and the
laboratories of corporate agribusiness.

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We declare the liberation of our
agriculture from chemicals,

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from corporations, from patents and
from genetically modified organisms.

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We want food and agriculture
out of the WTO.

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Trade agreements are allowing corporations
to expand what they own and control

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from things like machinery, to
knowledge and even life itself

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and they\'re trying to force all countries
to permit patents on living creatures.

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What\'s being patented is not only what is genetically
engineered. Plants that have been picked up

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from somewhere have been patented.

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Which is to say, this is my
innovation, I have full control of

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who uses it, how it is used,
when it is used, and I charge

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for allowing anybody to use it.

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[music]

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Patents are supposed to give inventors
control over what they invent.

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But in 1980 the US Supreme Court
upheld a patent on bacteria,

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which opened the door to patents
on seeds, plants and animals.

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We have human genes being patented, we have human
cell lines being patented. It is not at all clear

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whether or not they might be able to patent human
organs that have been altered in some way.

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Should we be able to patent life, should we be
able to patent naturally occurring DNA sequences?

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Who do these belong to? Do they belong
to a person that happens to isolate them

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in the laboratory? And why don\'t they belong to
the country where that plant originated from,

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or, or to society at large?
What we have is a removal of

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the boundary conditions on patenting,

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and we need to re-institutionalize some
kinds of limits, some kinds of boundaries.

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[music]

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Tom Carlson is prospecting along the Amazon.
He\'s not looking for gold or silver

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but for medicinal plants. To learn
from these very knowledgable

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traditional healers is a wonderful
experience and I feel like

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I\'m in yet another residency, uh… looking
over their shoulders, learning from them.

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[non-English narration]

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Working with a healer in the Peruvian Amazon, he
says, \"I have a treatment for fungal infection

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on the skin,\" and he started doing a bird
call. We listen and said, \"So, it\'s a bird?\"

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He says, \"No, it\'s the bird call I made
is the bird that nests in the tree

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and it\'s the bark of that
tree.\" Ecuador and Peru

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and Colombia have not only a very
high biodiversity, but a very high

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cultural diversity. A lot of these people
they have lived there for thousands of years

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in a very harsh environment with many
diseases and they have survived,

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and they have survived through their own
knowledge of medicine. When Carlson gets back

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to San Francisco, he\'s learned a lot more
than which plants might help fight disease.

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The part of the plant used, what time of the
year the plant is collected that\'s best,

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do you add other substances with it?
What kind of solvent do you use?

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Is it boiled, do you put it in some
kind of alcohol, is it put in vinegar?

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Basically this is where we store the
collections of the plants that we receive,

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and then we give them their plant code.

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Survival of the Amazon basin

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has already been threatened by foreign
companies, first through logging and then oil.

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In just 25 years of drilling in
Ecuador, Texaco spilled more oil

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than the EXXON Valdez.

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[non-English narration]

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[music]

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Some say patenting and
commercializing medicinal plants

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could help save the rain forest, because companies
would have a stake in preserving the environment.

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Yet, there\'s still no guarantee that
people who live here will be better off.

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Companies that come here and they look for
these resources, they discover they are good

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and could help heal some… some diseases
in the world which is very good,

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that\'s very nice, but the people that have discovered
these plants and have developed these plants,

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the people here are being used and one day
they get sick with one of the diseases,

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they\'ll probably have to buy the
medicine and pay for the patent.

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If we are going to make efforts to preserve the
jungle, to preserve nature here, we have to get

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some benefits from it. By
international agreement,

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genetic resources belong to the country where
they\'re found. So companies like Shaman

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offer to share the profits from plants they
commercialize. But it\'s not that easy.

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If we didn\'t patent it,
some big company would,

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if it\'s a beneficial uh… substance,
and then the communities

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that we work with, we wouldn\'t get
benefit nor would they. We work with

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nearly 30 countries and 70 ethno-linguistic
groups. When we do have revenues,

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all the countries we work
with will benefit equally.

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In the end, Shaman went bankrupt,
so there were no revenues to share.

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But critics say that\'s
not really the point.

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[music]

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Far from the Amazon rainforest, in an
extremely dry region of Washington State,

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Jim Moore and his family
plant 5,000 acres of wheat..

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I was born to farm. It is a
demanding job but when we work,

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we work hard and when
we play, we play hard.

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In the 60\'s a combine was $10 to $15,000,

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now they\'re a quarter of a million dollars, but the price
of wheat, I sold wheat last year for uh… less than

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I sold it for in 1960. Monsanto and
other \"life science\" companies

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say genetically modified crops
can help improve farm income,

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but Jim isn\'t convinced. These genes are
all patented and I have to buy my seed,

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instead of being able to save my
own seed off my farm, and pay,

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I don\'t know, whatever they want to charge, and yet I
can\'t control the price of wheat on the other end…

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I don\'t have a problem with
genetically modified wheat

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per se, but I\'m totally
against it coming out

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until all of the countries in the world are
willing to accept genetically modified products.

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Are they going to grow this and no one wants to buy
it. How are we possibly going to segregate it…

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Steve Jones teaches at
Washington State University.

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For decades, he and his colleagues have developed new wheat
varieties and made them freely available to growers.

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We would not be growing wheat in the state
of Washington if we did not have material

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from Turkey, and France and Japan and
Russia and probably 40 other countries.

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Those days are over in terms of free
exchange of genetic and plant materials.

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They\'re over because of the greed
involved in patenting plants,

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and in patenting technologies,
in patenting genes.

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Giant agro-chemical companies say they
want to \"Transform how crops are grown.\"

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They\'re planning a new kind of
agriculture where seeds need chemicals.

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The grower buys the seed in town, plants it,
he or she then plants it back the next year

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and either it doesn\'t grow at all,
or it grows but it doesn\'t look like

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what the farmer had last year because you
have to add these external factors to it

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which the company will gladly sell you,
which will turn on disease resistance,

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height control, quality… But many
growers want to reduce their need

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for outside inputs, like chemicals and
patented seeds. And you don\'t need

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genetic engineering to breed improved
strains of wheat. We use DNA markers

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and DNA clones to follow genes such as
disease resistance and things like that.

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We do not insert them back into the plant.
We cross the plants

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the way it has been done for generations.
Wheat has always been an annual crop,

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but Steve is developing some new varieties
that come back year after year.

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So this is a two year old wheat plant.
This is the parent or original line.

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We\'re doing that to lower the inputs, for
erosion control, we\'re looking at it

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for wildlife habitat in the growers\' fields. By the time
Steve gets it figured out how this kernel is going to end up

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in the bakery, I\'m going to have it figured
out how I\'m going to make it grow.

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It\'s a total success that we have lines that are re-growing, lines
that look healthy. And never in 43 years would I ever think

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I would harvest a head of wheat like that, but maybe
I\'m hopeful I will, you know, if it\'s going to work.

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Because it\'s got a good and
yields halfway decent…

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It\'s environmentally friendly, we
wouldn\'t use near as much chemicals

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or fertilizer, and we\'re not GMO.

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[music]

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George and Peggy Naylor raise
corn and soybeans in Iowa,

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on land that George\'s
grandparents once farmed.

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Farming requires you to interact with Mother
Nature, so it\'s a challenge every day.

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It used to be most farms had livestock on
the farm and you would have hay and pasture

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and… and oats that would fit
right in to that production,

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and now all the livestock are gone, they\'re in great
big huge confinements, and these corn and soybeans

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end up as feed for those confinements. And a lot of the
corn and soy now being grown is genetically modified.

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GM varieties are promoted
as a way to cut costs

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when farm prices keep going down. The prices
now that I\'m receiving for corn and soybeans

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are the lowest now that I\'ve
received in the last 30 years.

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There\'s less farmers, a lot of neighbors just didn\'t
make it. Women that helped their husbands farm

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have to get off the farm jobs and a
lot of them actually do housekeeping

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for other farmers, the men, who
farm, and then they truck.

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We\'ve become dependent
on government payments

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which uh… just barely get us by sometimes so
both spouses have to get jobs off the farm.

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So they\'re just constantly going, they can\'t concentrate on their
farming, they can\'t concentrate on their family or community.

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Recently Peggy got a job
as a social worker,

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but she and George have resisted the
pressure to grow genetically modified crops.

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You\'ve got these farmers on the brink, this is how… or the
banks tell them this is what you have to do to get this loan.

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Farmers really had no choice, I mean, this was kind of
rammed down their throats as this is a way to survive.

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Because of the patenting of that technology,
farmers aren\'t allowed to save seed.

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You know they are threatening to
prosecute farmers for saving seed

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on just plain old soybean seed.
Genetically engineered crops

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sometimes haven\'t panned out, sometimes they yield
less. You know we have this strong tradition

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in our country of pushing things to the market and
then 30 years later, it\'s aah, take it off the market,

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it causes cancer it does this and that.

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You\'re messing with the basics of life and
you just don\'t know what you\'re creating.

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But it\'s getting more difficult
to keep their fields GM free.

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I have to worry about pollen from my neighbor\'s
GMO corn because it will pollinate my corn

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just as well as their own. Iowa State University is
saying that you really need to isolate your crop

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1,000 feet from any GMO crop.

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And then also the seed supply now has
been contaminated with GMO seed,

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so when I buy seed I can\'t really be
sure that uh… it\'s not contaminated.

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The Naylors have joined a lawsuit
against Monsanto and other companies,

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charging genetic contamination
threatens the livelihood of farmers

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who don\'t want to grow GM crops. Well,
I hope it will put a constraint

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on some of the economic and political power

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of the big companies. What needs
to happen is an appreciation of

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the importance of family farm agriculture.
After all, what is the alternative?

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[music]

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Across the country, near Sta. Barbara,
Michael Ableman manages a community

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supported organic farm. We\'re
able to feed a lot of people

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on a very small piece of land umm…

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using some time honored practices.

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As for genetically modified crops and patented
seeds, he sees little to gain and a lot to lose.

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It is better for the earth? Is it
better for the people eating the food?

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Does the food taste better? Is it more
nutritious? When you control and patent

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plant materials, it is the ultimate attempt

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to control the world\'s food system. As he
developed his own approach to farming,

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Michael looked in another direction…
to Africa, Asia, and South America.

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I began to develop this sense that,

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there were some things that we could
learn from these traditional cultures,

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who had been working the same
land for thousands of years

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and yet it still was productive
and fertile and producing.

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[music]

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In Peru I saw fields the size of most people\'s
suburban front yards with 30 varieties of potatoes.

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You know, you would go
to a small family farmer

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and he or she would be planting at least 10 to
20 different varieties. One of them would be

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more resistant to drought, one of them would be
more resistant to a certain type of pest attack.

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So in case of a drought or in case of a pest
attack, not all of the crop was wiped out.

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[music]

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The places where biodiversity survives are the
places where economic development has not reached.

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These are the last pockets of biodiversity

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and it is the poor, in those conventional
terms, who have been the best conservers.

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But now 3rd world farmers are
supposed to hitch their futures

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to a new kind of agriculture
based on seeds that are patented

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and sold by just a few
international companies.

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Industrialized agriculture and this genetic engineering and
Green Revolution, they have given us this model of monoculture.

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You know, you\'ll see neat rows
of the same crop after crop,

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and when some pest infestation takes place or
when there is a drought and if the crop fails,

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we are making sure that… that farmer
is out of his or her business.

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[music]

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For thousands of years,
farmers have saved the seeds

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from their best plants to
start next year\'s crop.

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This continually improves plant
varieties and increases biodiversity.

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Over 1.4 billion farmers around
the world who have practiced

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this millennia old strategy of saving the
seed from the harvest for the next harvest,

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and suddenly, because the company has patented
the seed, they have to go back year after year,

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spend the money to buy those seeds.

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Seeds that are creating a new poverty among farmers
because they are seeds that necessarily require

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chemicals, pesticides,
fertilizers, heavy irrigation.

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The first year it\'s a free seed packet, the
next year it comes with a credit package

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and third year it comes with debt.

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Some say we need this new technology to
keep up with our growing population,

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but there\'s more food per capita in
the world today than ever before.

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The reason you have hunger is not because we didn\'t have
biotechnology. You have it because people are too poor to buy food.

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You know, You need living wage. You need uh… land
reform policies. You need decent trade agreements.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
You do not need biotechnology. And it\'s not just from
the third world. Let\'s take the case of America.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
According to the latest USDA
report, 36 million Americans

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
do not have adequate access to food
because they are too poor to buy food.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
In the 1990\'s millions of farmers in India

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
formed a nationwide movement to challenge companies
that were flooding the market with patented seeds.

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
What the farmers were seeing themselves as doing
is continuing the kind of things Gandhi did

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
with British cloth that was wiping out the
livelihoods of millions of weavers in India.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
What textile mechanization was
to that period of colonialism,

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
biotechnology and seed colonization is
to this period of the New World order.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
[non-English narration]

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
Seeds are the center of the food chain.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:10.000
So if you control the seeds, you
control the food supply system.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:28.000
[music]

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
As budgets for universities and other public
agencies are cut back, many have gone into business

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
with biotechnology companies. The
resources that we would have here

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
enable us to do things that are very difficult to do in
the university, for instance to make a great deal of DNA.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
Sometimes we will go to someone and say, \"You\'re doing a very
interesting piece of work. We would like you to continue that

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
but perhaps explore another
avenue and we will support

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
umm… some technical staff and some
resources that you might need.\"

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
The gene itself, let\'s say for herbicide
resistance, is worth nothing until it is injected

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
into a variety that can be grown
by the farmers in that area.

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
That\'s where the universities come in. And what
we have is infrastructure, breeding programs

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
such as the one I\'m involved with. But
researchers who accept corporate support

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
agree not to discuss their work with
colleagues or publish their findings

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
until they apply for a patent.
Traditionally we\'ve done

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
what needs to be done because it\'s
being neglected by the private sector.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
The real danger there is we adopt the business
mentality as opposed to a public service mentality.

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
[music]

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
The patent office actually
granted a California company

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
a patent on human stems cells. Among many people who
were horrified by this were people from the leukemia

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
Society of America who said, \"My goodness, how are
researchers going to do research on stem cells

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
if the stem cells themselves are
actually patented and owned

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
by one California Corporation?\"

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
In every corner of the world
researchers are patenting life.

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
These banana workers in
Panama are Guaymi Indians.

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
When doctors found disease fighting cells in the blood of
a Guaymi woman, the U.S. government applied for a patent.

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
Indigenous communities
are basically suffering

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
an onslaught of prospectors, whether
they\'re prospectors of knowledge,

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
whether they are prospectors of genetic
materials, that they can take, that they can find

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
and they can take from indigenous
communities for their own benefit.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
We really don\'t know what they are going to make use of these
genes for. You know, I mean In the past they used to collect our

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
You know, indigenous people\'s skeletons, mummies, you
know, and all these things, put them in the museum.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
Now what are they going
to do with these genes?

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
When DNA becomes a commodity, it
gets harder to do genetic research.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
The Human Genome Diversity Project wanted
to study DNA from different places

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
to understand how people are related. So far
it was done in a sort of haphazard way.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
People thought, oh, I\'m going
to look at this population

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
in… in Egypt and someone else in South
America looked at another population

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
and they looked at them in many different
ways, and used what we call genetic markers.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
But the project met with resistance
when it urged researchers

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
to gather genetic material from
endangered peoples before they disappear.

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
The Human Genome Diversity Project
is kind of the first project

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
that raised awareness in indigenous
communities around the world

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
and resulted in widespread opposition. I
mean, indigenous populations are viewed

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
as a resource, you know, to be mined, but all you
need is the DNA, you don\'t need to do anything

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
about the populations that are disappearing,
you don\'t have to try to save their lives.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
Now we have scientists coming in to find
unusual genetic traits in those people.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
Surely it must occur to these scientists that those who
are oppressing these people or who view them as inferior

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
could use that knowledge to say these people
do have some unique or strange predisposition

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:35.000
that justifies our persecution of them.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
Especially because we are really raising a lot of problems for
all these transnational corporations, we are opposing the mines,

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
we are opposing dam construction.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
Enough is enough. Our DNA
is not ours to buy, sell,

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
you know, to patent, to trade. Our DNA
was passed on to us from our ancestors.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
It\'s got a long, long history
and it has its own integrity

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
which creates us as people. We have
a responsibility as human beings

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
to pass on our genetic
heritage on to our children.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
Every spiritual tradition
considers life to be sacred,

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
and many religious leaders have spoken out against
patents on life. But the industry still wants

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
to extend these patents throughout the
world. In a system in which it is assigned

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
to the private sector the role for developing
break through medicines, all right.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
Property rights, intellectual property
rights in particular are absolutely critical

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
are absolutely necessary if that system is
to work. It costs a great deal of money

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
to develop a drug, literally
hundreds of millions of dollars.

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
And if when we\'ve done that, somebody else can come along
and say, \"That\'s a good idea, I\'ll make some of that too.\"

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
Why would anyone be foolish enough
to invest those $100 million then?

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
It\'s simply not worth your while. If you\'re a researcher
out there, you\'re going to get the public acclaim

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
for having cured one of the most pernicious diseases. Whatever medication
or surgical procedure, you\'re going to be able to patent that.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
If we\'re saying that the American
research community will not do work

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
in curing disease with all of these other financial and
personal advantages unless you can actually patent

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
the animals that are being researched on or the
actual cells and genes that are being used,

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
these people are in the wrong business. They should
get their MBA\'s and move right over to Wall Street,

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
and let those who are truly interested in curing disease
and making reasonable profits doing it, begin to take over

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
the American medical establishment. Whether
it\'s genes, seeds, plants, or people,

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
life is too precious to be
patented and privately owned.

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
And some things like food and
health may be too important

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
to be left to market forces. What if
curing starvation is not profitable?

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
What if vaccinating children
through bananas is not profitable?

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
What if giving Vitamin A through
golden rice is not profitable?

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
What then? If it\'s not profitable, and it hasn\'t
been so far, to go into developing countries

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
and help these people feed themselves,
what are they going to do?

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
What they\'re going to do is pull the plug. You know they already
own a great share of the food supply, but once you own things

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
from the seed on up, I mean, you….
You have all the power in the world.

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
It doesn\'t matter it come. I mean guns
and (inaudible) like that don\'t really,

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
when it comes down to matter, as much as
food. Human need not corporate greed!

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
Human need not corporate greed! The world Trade
Organization and this economic globalization

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
has also generated a globalization from below.
And we see these communities around the world,

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
campesino movements, peasant movements,
farmers, linking hands together

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
to challenge this growing corporate power
over our food system and these patents.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
That to me is the real hope for the future. That you\'re
not just getting a globalization of corporate rule,

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
you\'re also getting a
globalization of citizen action.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:20.000
[music]