D is for DNA circa 1980
Heirloom corn on the Native Seeds/SEARCH farm, Patagonia, AZ
Q: What's something that connects an ear of corn, a taro root, you and me?
A: DNA. Not just deoxyribonucleic acid, the inner blueprint, code, recipe for life. But DNA as a link of past to present, from what we eat to what we are, to what is seen and unseen. And its what some, including poet-activist John Trudell have reworded as "descendant now ancestor."
Yet from an entire ecosystem, to a living organism, down the molecular level, DNA has become a battleground and figures in the story of getting food and medicine from the farm (or forest) to the table.
I can vividly remember the summer of 2005 in Hawaii, and the protests at the UH Manoa campus to stop the proposed patent of taro, or kalo, a traditional crop and part of Native Hawaiian cosmology. Taro also figures deep in traditional Filipino foods (gabi) and across the Asia-Pacific. It took serious opposition from the community to lift the patent. But it still raised the question - how could any one person, corporation or institution "own" taro, whether in whole or in part? How can there be a patent on ancestral foods that have sustained countless generations - and are even what some consider a living ancestor?
How did we get here? In 1980 the US Supreme Court upheld the "patentability" of living matter. In basic terms, a patent would define companies or researchers as the "inventor" and the living thing or its extract subject to ownership. This opened a doorway to controversial issues of intellectual property rights, questions of profit, and a disturbing trend of research and extraction from biodiverse Global South and indigenous communities.
Writer, activist and physicist Vandana Shiva breaks this down:
Seed has been brought into monopolies. Cells have brought into monopolies. Genes have been brought into monopolies. Animals have been brought into monopolies...A seed cannot reproduce without permission of the patent holder and the company. Knowledge cannot be transmitted without permission and license collection. It’s rent collection from life. It’s rent collection from being human, and thinking, and knowing.
From the smallest level, there are big consequences for food and survival, where it comes from, who can grow it, and how we as a people can sustain ourselves. Let's support those who are protecting the living biodiversity and foods that link ancestors to descendants. Its a food heritage we are all connected to.
Some more on DNA and Food:
Filipino scientists devise system to stop biopiracy
In Motion Interview with Vandana Shiva