Bioprospecting, Biopiracy and Food Security in India: The Emerging Sides of Neoliberalism

Bhattacharya, Sayan

doi:10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.23.49

ILSHS > ILSHS Volume 23 > Bioprospecting, Biopiracy and Food Security in...

< Back to Volume

Bioprospecting, Biopiracy and Food Security in India: The Emerging Sides of Neoliberalism

Full Text PDF

Abstract:

Biopirates benefited and prospered from the plundering of natural resources from the developing and less developed countries without paying any royalty to the source countries at all. In the recent past, there have been several cases of biopiracy of traditional knowledge from India. Biopiracy in India was observed in the common plant varieties like Haldi, Basmati, Neem etc. Some cases have been highlighted with a success story, but there are also numerous stories of deprivation in the context of biopiracy. The stealing of biological resources and indigenous knowledge would affect food security, livelihood of indigenous people, and consumers‟ choice. More than 70 % of our food supply is dependent on a small number of edible plant resources, mainly wheat, maize, rice, and potato, which are fundamental to food security. Patenting of these plants varieties will definitely pose threat to the consumers. In politics, biopiracy has triggered the problem of the intrusion of national sovereignty when a corporation or a government from other countries utilizes and benefits from the patent varieties of genetic resources which derived from genetic resources or traditional knowledge from another sovereign state. However, in the past few years, developing countries have become more vocal in the international arena. This would help developing countries in the political bargaining with developed countries and can help to solve the problem of biopiracy.

Info:

Periodical:

International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences (Volume 23)

Pages:

49-56

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.23.49

Citation:

S. Bhattacharya, "Bioprospecting, Biopiracy and Food Security in India: The Emerging Sides of Neoliberalism", International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, Vol. 23, pp. 49-56, 2014

Online since:

March 2014

Authors:

Sayan Bhattacharya

Keywords:

Biodiversity, Biopiracy, Bioprospecting, Food Security, Patent

Export:

RIS, BibTeX, Text

Distribution:

Open Access

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

References:

Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India. 2002. Biotechnology and Bioprospecting for Sustainable Development. India's presentation for the Ministerial Meeting of Megabiodiversity Countries. Cancun, Mexico.

Zakrzewski P. A., Bioprospecting or Biopiracy? The Pharmaceutical Industry's Use of Indigenous Medicinal Plants as a Source of Potential Drug Candidates. University of Toronto Medical Journal 79(3) (2002) 252-254.

Shankar D., Traditional Medicine and Biopiracy. Ancient Science of Life 17(1) (1997) 67-71.

Kothari A., Patel A. 2006. Environment and Human Rights. National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi.

United Nations Development Programme. 1999. Biopiracy and the patenting of staple food crops. Human Development Report, (1999).

Hamilton, C. 2006. Biodiversity, Biopiracy and benefits: What Allegations of Biopiracy tell us about intellectual property. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford.

Udgaonkar S., The recording of traditional knowledge: Will it prevent bio-piracy', Current Science 82(4) (2002) 413-419.

Robinson D.F. 2010. Confronting biopiracy: challenges, cases and international debates. Earthscan, London/Washington.

Shiva, V. 1999. Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. South end press. India.

Runguphan, T. 2004. Biopiracy in Asia : a case study of India and Thailand. University of Hong Kong, China.

Biopiracy. Accessed from: http: /jzsayit. blogspot. in/2010_04_01_archive. html, Accessed on February 21, (2014).

Hindustan Times. May 2, 2008. Biopiracy rampant in Nagaland. Accessed from: http: /www. hindustantimes. com/india-news/bio-piracy-rampant-in-nagaland/article1308353. aspx, Accessed on February 21, (2014).

Yusuf M., Ethical issues in the use of the terminator seed technology. African Journal of Agricultural Research 9(52) (2010) 8901-8904.

Bhattacharya S., Chattopadhyay D. J., Mukhopadhyay A., Changing Dimensions of Food Security in a Globalized World: A Review of the Perspectives for Environment, Economy and Health. International research journal of environmental sciences 2(3) (2013).

Ministry of Environment and forests. 2010. National consultations on BT brinjals: A primer on concerns, issues and prospects. Centre for environment education, India.

Samuels, J. 2012. Genetically engineered Bt brinjal and the implications for plant biodiversity - revisited. Greenpeace, India. Accessed from: http: /www. greenpeace. org/india/PageFiles/446445/GE-Bt-brinjal-revisited. pdf, Accessed on February 21, (2014).

Intellectual property handbook. Bioprospecting, traditional knowledge and benefit sharing, Concept foundation, Bangkok. Accessed from: http: /www. iphandbook. org/handbook/ch16/, Accessed on February 21, (2014).

TWM. Bio-Piracy Cheats Developing Countries and their Indigenous Peoples of $5. 4 Billion a Year in Plant and Knowledge Royalties, Says Study Conducted for UNDP. Accesses from: http: /twm. co. nz/Biopiracy. html., Accessed on February 21, (2014).

Scheper-Hughes, N. 2006. Biopiracy and the Global Quest for Human Organs. NACLA Report on the Americas 39(5): 14-21. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. ( Received 23 February 2014; accepted 28 February 2014 ).

Show More Hide

Cited By:

[1] S. Singh, A. Singh, Plant Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge for Food Security, p. 231, 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0060-7_13

[2] A. Bhukta, S. Jana, Intellectual Property Rights and the Protection of Traditional Knowledge, p. 140, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1835-9.ch007