The Basmati Action Group (BAG) asks for your support in our campaign to bring an end to the practice of patenting life forms! We would appreciate your support in spreading the word. If your organization would like to endorse the campaign, please let us know! E-mail: basmati-action@sfu.ca or Tel. no. (604) 255-4910 or mailing address: c/o 1957 Kitchener St. Vancouver, B.C. V5L 2W6.

This message contains two letters from BAG: a) letter to people/groups asking for support in a North American boycott against all products of Rice Tec corporation and b) letter you can send to any local stores that carry Rice Tec products.

In Struggle,

Nandita Sharma, for the Basmati Action Group

BASMATI ACTION GROUP (BAG), c/o 1957 Kitchener St. Vancouver, B.C. Canada V5L 2W6
Tel. (604) 255-4910, E-mail:basmati-action@sfu.ca

November 29, 1998 The Basmati Action Group (BAG) has launched a North American boycott against the products of Rice Tec Corporation of Alvin, Texas, USA. Rice Tec claims to have invented the basmati rice they sell under the trade name, "Texmati" (Rice Tec products also include "Jasmati" and "Kasmati" rice). The purpose of the boycott is to heighten awareness of the issue of life-patents, organize public condemnation of this process and demonstrate that the patenting of life will be costly - not profitable - to those that pirate indigenous knowledge and nature's creative capacities. We ask that you support the Basmati Action Group in our boycott of all Rice Tec products.

Basmati rice has been grown in the Punjab region of India and Pakistan for centuries. Working with nature's own creative capacities, farmers in this area have, over time, cross bred and cultivated this distinct form of rice known for its fragrant aroma and unique taste. For the farmers of India and Pakistan, basmati rice is a vital subsistence food and source of income.

In 1997, the powerful United States Patent and Trademark Office accepted Rice Tec's application to patent basmati rice (patent # 5,663,484). By cross-breeding two basmati rice varieties this corporation insists that it has "invented" a "novel" variety of basmati and has patented it as "basmati 867." The Rice Tec patent covers any basmati variety crossed with a semi-dwarf strain grown anywhere in the western hemisphere. Despite Rice Tec's claims of 'novelty', "basmati 867" has been derived from Indian and Pakistani basmati rice lines rossed with semi-dwarf varieties. The basmati varieties used to "invent" Rice Tec's "basmati 867" are farmers' varieties bred over centuries in South Asia.

What Rice Tec has done with its patent is to pirate what until now had been communally shared and claimed it as their own private property.

The crux of the issue is not whether the basmati rice variety bred by Rice Tec is "novel" and therefore patentable or not because the facts show that it is not. The real issue is that no one should be able to hold a patent over a life form. By taking out a patent on "basmati 867" Rice Tec is participating in what has been described as "biopiracy."

Biopiracy is the theft of indigenous knowledge, the theft of the creative capacities of nature and the false claim by patent holders - mostly corporations - that they created the life form they have pirated. Biopiracy lays the groundwork for the colonization of creation - of life itself - by scientists and, ultimately, the corporations they work for.

Life-patents further the power of corporations. Imagine a world where nothing is grown except crops that a corporation has claimed 'invention' of and can profit by. Imagine if nothing is grown without farmers having to go to corporations to buy back seeds stolen from them in the first place. Or a world where nothing can even grow without the permission of corporations (i.e. the "Terminator Technology" that prevents plants from reproducing themselves). This is the world that biopirates, and patents like the one on "basmati 867" are already helping to bring about!

We need to fight against this trend. BAG is part of a world-wide movement of people who are protesting the corporate claims of "invention" that patents on life represent. We are not resigned to living in a world where the creative capacities of nature, of women and of communities of people are systematically denied and pirated. BAG calls for an end to patents on life forms that is currently being sanctioned by the World Trade Organization and enshrined in both national and international law.

Victories have been won against corporations that have patented life forms! The US National Institutes of Health "disclaimed" its notorious US patent on the human cell line of a Hagahai Indigenous person from Papau New Guinea (patent # 5,397,696) after popular outrage was organized. The Indian government revoked the W.R. Grace Corporation's "species patent" on transgenic cotton. In other words, this boycott against Rice Tec can work!

BAG is a grassroots organization that values life in all its diversity. BAG is opposed to the patenting of any life forms, anywhere, by anyone. This means supporting actions that value and procect ecological integrity, indigenous knowledge and lands, women's rights, the autonomy and self-determinacy of people and community-based action. Food forms the natural link between community and life. For this reason, recent developments in world trade and agricultural policy, life-patenting and genetic engineering strike us as attacks on the essence of those things we value most.

BAG has been formed to raise awareness about biopiracy, life patents and on-going acts of colonialism - and to work to end these practices. Along with many others, we see biopiracy as the "third wave of colonialism" and an entrenchment of sexist and racist practices. We recognize that women in the South ('Third World Women') continue to bear the brunt of acts of colonialism. For over 500 years, the North (the 'First World') has been enriched by stealing from nature and the people's of the South (the 'Third World'). This is maintained by present global economic and political relations. Most of the world's biodiversity is located in the South and biopiracy is an attempt by corporations to privatize and 'own' what is the common heritage of people in the South. BAG is also working to show that biopiracy is a form of class conflict with corporations trying to eliminate communal property, destroy farmers' control and supplant nature's creative capacities in order to increase their own private profits.

Please circulate this notice within your organization and to your membership. Talk about biopiracy and the Rice Tec boycott whenever possible. Spread the word to your contacts across North America. Support local actions against biopiracy. Ask your local stores to stop carrying Rice Tec products.

Boycotting Rice Tec and its products is one action in the movement to resist corporate control over life forms. Raising awareness of biopiracy and developing ways of producing and distributing food that are ecologically sound and socially just is something we can all contribute to in different ways. BAG has also initiated a petition campaign trying to get the Canadian government to refuse Rice Tec's US patent on basmati rice and enacting strong legislation that prevents the patenting of life forms in Canada. This struggle cannot be won without global solidarity - a victory in Canada is impossible without simultaneous victories against the World Trade Organization, NAFTA etc. BAG is working in coalition with people's organizations in both the South and North to revoke Rice Tec's U.S. patent on basmati rice and to stop biopiracy.

Included in this call for support (sent to those in Canada) is the petition BAG is circulating within Canada. Please photocopy and distribute it. Remember, it is important to return completed petitions to the return address printed on the bottom.

Please let us know if we can use your name as a supporter of our campaign in our future work. Any suggestions towards strengthening our objectives and resistance is greatly appreciated.

For more information, check out our Web Site! http://www.eciad.bc.ca/~lolin/basmati/ or call and ask for Nandita Sharma or Allison Campbell at (604) 255-4910. Mailing and e-mail addresses are listed above.

In Struggle,