A Seed War Is On
A Seed War Is On From "The Road Back to Nature" By Masanobu Fukuoka
America's Food Strategy — It seems to me that the glory of America Is largely a product of the scientific methods of farming that have been developed over the past two hundred years. But today, the problems of pollution and entropy engendered by modern agriculture are starting to shake the very foundations of the American system. I believe that one of the things that is beginning to arise in the dark shadows of civilization is America's food strategy.
America today prides itself on its role as the bread basket of the world. President Reagen boasts that America leads the world in grain production, apparently believing that the country can lead and even conquer the world with food and weapons. For some time now America's basic plan has been to conduct these two major strategies independent of each other. Whether they arc aware of this or not, the Japanese have complied handsomely.
But I have my doubts as to how long this strategy can be pursued. I believe that its low regard for the land will be America's downfall. If the land falls victim to American farming practices and continues to be ruined at the present rate, it won't hold out even fifty years more. It may last another twenty or thirty at the most. Indeed, continuing scientific farming for even twenty more years will be difficult. I suspect that most farmers will give up before then. The eve of this breakdown in agriculture will be frightening as circumstances everywhere become desperate.
What I fear most right now is that the land which has nurtured and protected America's farmers is in the process of being ruined. Each year, American agriculture is approaching a limit of no return. Once this is exceeded, no amount of effort will succeed in reestablishing the farming methods of the past. When the land perishes, willing or not, the defeated farmers will have no choice but to become the pawns of agribusiness. Food production will have to be carried out as part of a broader strategy.
Let me be more explicit. Control over America's seeds today lies squarely in the hands of five oil companies. Working hand in hand with political and economic interests, the oil companies have moved into bioindustry and begun to take control of agriculture. The seed war started long before this. The moment that America's oil companies consolidate their control over the seeds of cereal grains such as rice and corn and over superior lines of livestock, America's farmers will be done for. The truth is that the hands of the oil companies have already stretched out over the entire world. Even I myself have been drawn into this vortex.
Rice Seed as a Weapon —
For many, many years now I have devoted myself to rice production, believing firmly that farmers in any age must never forget rice. However, with the rice we have today, one cannot grow natural rice. Today's rice has been bred and improved so much by man that I find it weak and totally unsatisfactory. Long ago, I felt that if strong, hardy rice suited to natural farming could be developed, it would be easy to grow, so I set out half-seriously to create new varieties of this grain, My goal was the exact opposite of the new varieties that agricultural scientists strive for.
My ambition was to bring back the healthy rices of yesterday. I even thought that if such varieties were to be brought to countries suffering from food shortages and there grown successfully by natural farming methods, this might help to halt the encroachment, of scientific agriculture. However, if such seeds were to fall first into the hands of the CIA, they would, be crossed by the oil companies with the male sterile rice developed by Professor Choyu Shinjo (see article below) and soon become a hybrid rice used by the powers that be as a tool, for profit-making and strategy. It is indeed sad that when countries start competing to develop hybrid rice as a strategic weapon, the whole effort degenerates into the very same sort of ugly confrontation as the nuclear arms race.
* The following article, which appeared in Japanese in the January 3, 1.984 issue of the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun, relates my experiences with the new variety of rice I developed on my farm and offers a glimpse of the international "seed war." * * * Japan, U.S. Vie in Development of High-Yielding Rice Seed
Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One-Straw Revolution and advocate of a way of farming that does not rely on pesticides and chemical fertilizers, is worried. At his home in lyo-shi, Ehime Prefecture recently, the seventy-year-old natural farmer held his head in his hands and, sighing repeatedly, kept saying how he had gone and done something that could not be undone.
What Fukuoka has done is to cross a glutinous rice someone brought back from Burma after World War Two with Japanese nonglutinous rice. After years of crossbreeding and selection, he has succeeded in developing many lines of superhigh-yielding rice. Based on calculations from the number of grains grown on a single square-meter of land, these new varieties yield about one metric ton of rice per quarter-acre, which is roughly twice the average yield in Japan today. He genuinely fears that these superhigh-yielding varieties could kick up a confrontation over seeds between American multinational firms and Japan.
In March 1983, Fukuoka applied to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for registration of four of his new types of rice as new cultivars under the Seedlings Law. Late last year (1983), while on other business in Tokyo, he decided to check on how his application was going and paid the Ministry a visit carrying with him seedlings of the four lines.
"Don't let out a single seed": At the Ministry, four officials surrounded Fukuoka and told him, "If the U.S. gets hold of this and converts it into hybrid Fl rice, they'll turn it against us. We want you to refrain from sending this seed out of the country for three years and watch carefully any visitors." Each of the officials added words of caution, one going through the routine of pretending to pick up a seed and place it in his pocket, warning Fukuoka that "someone may even try to sneak off with just a single seed/' What made an especially strong impression on Fukuoka was the remark: "Make sure this isn't a repeat of the Shinjo incident." Fukuoka worries that his super-yielding rices may get caught up in the national drive by Japan to develop its own hybrid Fl seeds to counter U.S. hybrids. This confrontation between Japan and America dates back to 1981, when William Davis, counsel for agricultural affairs at the American Embassy in Japan, called upon Toshiaki Ashizawa, head of the Agriculture Production Division at the Agricultural Ministry. It seems that U.S. seed companies wanted to sell rice seed to Japan. The purpose of Davis' visit was to ask for information on the technical and legal feasibility of entry into the Japanese seed market.
Citing the highly particular Japanese taste for rice, the complex natural conditions in Japan, and the existence of both a Foodstuff Control Law which in principle requires permission for the import and export of all food related items, including seeds, and of a Plant Communicable Disease Control Law, Ashizawa explained that entry into the Japanese market would be difficult. He also indicated that, from the standpoint of national security, the only sensible course for a country was to produce its own rice seed domestically.
In spite of this, Richard Samuelson, president of Ring Around Products, a major U.S. seed maker that commercially sells hybrid Fl rice seed, came to Japan in March 1982 and visited the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (Zenno) and the Agricultural Ministry. He also approached several Japanese companies about forming partnerships for the production and sale in Japan of hybrid Fl rice seed. The Ministry told Samuelson the same things it had told Davis but, undaunted by this, he returned again to Japan that same June and stepped up his efforts to develop the local market.
This initiative to sell rice seed, and especially hybrid Ft seed, caught the Agricultural Ministry totally by surprise. The Ministry had not conducted any research or tests to speak of on Ft rice. Plans did exist to start the production of other rices for use in processed foods not requiring taste considerations. Although it had launched a 1 5-year plan in 1981 that called for the development of ; superhigh-yielding strains of rice, the Ministry had not included Fl rice in this. Funds were quickly earmarked for Fl development from the Ministry's fiscal 1982 budget but had it kept a closer eye on the hustling movements abroad concerning hybrid Ft rice, the Ministry would never have been caught off its guard.
To understand why this happened, it is necessary to take a look at the episode involving Professor Shinjo of the Faculty of Agriculture at Ryukyu University, whose name the ministry official brought up before Fukuoka. Shinjo was the first to demonstrate to the world the potential for the agricultural production of Fl rice (see below for an explanation of Fl rice).
This reporter visited the professor late last year at his laboratory in the city of Naha on Okinawa. Over dinner, he talked of how interest abroad in Fl rice had risen sharply and how a number of companies had contacted him directly about the rice.
Many years ago, Shinjo came up with a breakthrough in. rice breeding by creating a set of three complementary lines; a male sterile line with the required traits, a maintenance line that can be reproduced without disappearance of the male sterile trait, and a restorer line that, when crossed with the male sterile line, can be made to bear Fl seed by self-pollination. He made a presentation on this at a meeting of the Japanese Society of Breeding in 1966 and reported his findings in a genetics journal m 1969.
Shinjo was born on Ishigaki Island in the Ryukyus. Near the end of the war, his father was inducted into the local defense unit, forcing Shinjo, along with his mother, who died soon after of illness, and four siblings to scour the countryside for food in order to keep from starving.
It was this experience that set him on the road to breeding nee. He studied at both Ryukyu and Kyushu universities. While a graduate student, he found the genetic mechanism of rice that would allow male sterile lines of any desired trait to be produced, thus providing him with a clue to the practical development of Fl rice. His first experiments at Ryukyu University were done using buckets in place of rice fields. Later, he even drew on his own salary for funds to set up test fields.
The first to notice Shinjo's results was not Japan, but China, Increased food production was an indispensable part of that country's efforts to rebuild itself. However, in Japan, which was vigorously promoting a rice acreage Reduction program, Shinjo's research evoked no real response.
In the summer of 1972, just prior to resumption in diplomatic relations between the two countries, China sent an agricultural mission to Japan. While there, members of the mission asked for complete sets of the male sterile line along with the accompanying maintenance and recovery lines developed by Shinjo. Only too glad to oblige where this could be of help in raising food production, Shinjo spent two evenings lecturing to the Chinese delegation at a hotel in Tokyo and handed over a total of 180 seeds consisting of complete sets of six Fl varieties. The Chinese had been working on tests for the development of practical Fl rice using a male sterile strain discovered on Hainan Island. The 180 seeds received from Shinjo were immediately added to the project. In 1974, Shinjo gave a week-long series of lectures, six hours a day, in Peking, telling everything he could about his results thus far. Then, in 1978, announcing that they had succeeded in their efforts to develop practical Fl rice, the Chinese invited Shinjo over to see for himself.
From China to America: In 1979, the U.S. oil giant Occidental Petroleum acquired the rights to the use of China's Fl rice for ten years. Ring Around, the seed company whose president came to scout out the Japanese seed market in 1982, is affiliated with Occidental. This company attempted to introduce the Fl line into Japan exactly as it had gotten it from the Chinese, without any further breeding.
Occidental later divested itself of the company without so much as a word of warning, leading some in Japan to question the true intentions of the Americans. It was even speculated that the U.S. companies had simply been trying to resell the rights obtained from China to Japanese firms in order to help offset a business slump within the Occidental group. But Tatsumi Ono, director of the Association for the Protection of New Varieties, who came into contact with the president of Ring Around, said flatly, "They're not. giving up. Far from it. As a matter of fact, they're getting ready to start up operations over here." Occidental is not the only major U.S. industrial conglomerate that has set its sights on commercializing Fl rice in Japan.
Although it is not likely to happen in the near future, should the U.S. eventually succeed in developing strains of Fl rice that are relatively well-suited to natural conditions in Japan, and should sales in Japan prove to be profitable and problems concerning plant quarantine surmounted, what then could happen? Efforts to keep out these FT seeds with the Foodstuffs Control Law, for example, could aggravate trade friction between the two countries. But let us suppose for a moment that Fl seed produced in the U.S. were imported into Japan. Since the agricultural production of the F2 (second generation) rice is impossible (see technical description of hybrid Fl rice below), Japan would have to import the F l seed every single year. As long as business is good, the company producing the seed will never part with so much as a single set of the Fl parent seed that is the lifeblood of its business. This situation will effectively place part of Japan's rice production capacity in the control of the seed companies supplying the rice seed, and the countries to which these belong.
The head of Pioneer, Americans largest seed company, has reportedly said that Fl seeds for corn are being exported from America to the Soviet Union to help bolster grain production there. Naturally, in such a case, the American side is holding on tightly to the parents of that Fl seed and wouldn't dream of letting it go.
Even in the case of hybrid Fl seeds, the larger and more diverse the genetic pool available for breeding, the greater the influence this can help bring to bear on seed markets. That's because varieties that are genetically rather remote from each other tend to result in a clearer expression of traits.
With the exception of a very small number of experts, Japan as a whole has shown little interest, until recently in the collection of such, genetic resources. Word has it that the United States and the Soviet Union currently have amassed the world's largest collections of crop germplasm. The U.S. has a tradition of instructing those in its diplomatic service to collect plant germ plasm wherever they were stationed. The boat that Commodore Perry came over on, and even the U.S. Occupation Forces following World War Two, collected germ plasm in Japan.
Promising "Fukuoka Fl" Rice: Professor Shinjd is now looking with interest at Fukuoka's superhigh-yielding rice because it contains the genes of an ancient Burmese rice that is genetically remote from existing Japanese varieties. Rice is believed to have originated in the region that includes the Yunnan Province in southwest China, Burma, and the Assam- district of northeast India, which is why Shinjd firmly believes that outstanding gene plasm which, has not been distorted through artificial breeding remains present in the native varieties there.
Such being the case, the professor cannot help dreaming of the opportunity to bring Fukuoka's superhigh-yielding rice to its fullest, potential as a hybrid FL Fukuoka has received letters from people in China and South Korea requesting samples of his rice seed, although the letters give no indication of the reasons for the requests.
Of course, there is no telling how things will turn out if experiments for Fl production are conducted on Fukuoka's rice. But should success be had in developing powerful Fl lines with these, it will mean that a couple of country folk out in Ehime Prefecture and the Ryukyus will have rescued the Japanese from their narrow mindedness. Up until now, heedless of the fact that many countries have inadequate food production, the Japanese have frowned upon research on rice, saying that as a country it already produces too much.
Wary of Exploitation by Corporations: Fukuoka does feel as if he would like to help a lagging Japan win out against the designs of multinationals gunning for control of the country's food resources. But he is troubled by grave doubts over the present race to develop new varieties. His fear is that, as a result of endless genetic tampering to get certain desired traits, rice is being degraded into a greenhouse crop that cannot survive without massive applications of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.
Fukuoka maintains that his rice is complete in itself without being turned into an Fl crop. "Not only is it high- yielding/' he says. "It requires no pesticides or chemical fertilizers." That is far more than can be said for current varieties of rice.
Fukuoka is quite willing to hand over his rice if it is to be grown under natural conditions in developing nations, but he is uneasy about the possibility of others making Improper use of the seed. A recent Agricultural Ministry memorandum made Professor Shinjd promise not to release the germ plasma for his Ft rice within Japan for five years, and outside of Japan for ten years.
Hybrid Fl Rice— What Is It ? The method normally used to create a new cultivar is to cross two different existing varieties. The seeds produced from this cross are planted, and from this grows the first generation (Fl) crop. Although this crop shows striking characteristics such as uniformly high yields, the phenotypes and strains of the crop diverge in the second (F2) and subsequent generations. By selecting for the desired traits over the course of many generations, the parent and offspring of a line eventually come to show identical traits. What happens is that this becomes established as a potential cultivar. The rice grown by farmers today consists of these established varieties. That is why part of the harvested grain may be used to plant the following year's crop.
If a farmer chooses to raise seed at home as in the past, then he cannot use Fl seed for agricultural production. But it may be possible for seed companies to gain control over the parent varieties and grow Fl seed in large quantity for supply to farms. Following the war, American corporations brought this method into practice for corn, which is used as a major feed crop.
Today it has become a powerful lever for U.S. supremacy on the world corn market, Although both rice and corn are self-pollinating, in corn, the male flower (tassel) is attached at the top of the stalk, separate from the female flower, so this may be lopped off (detasseled) by machinery and the plant crossed with other varieties. In rice, however, both the stamen and pistil are present in the small flowers, making it impossible to quickly remove the stamens one by one from the flowers for each grain of rice in an actual seed production paddy field. In order to create Fl seed rice, it is thus necessary to find a variety of rice in which the stamen is sterile that is, male sterile.
I named my new strains of rice "Happy Hill 5 ' The Agricultural Ministry told me that they would rather not. use the word "Pukuoka' 5 because this might be confused with Fukuoka Prefecture. Hence, because the characters for Fukuoka (fiHI) literally mean "happy hill/ 5 I immediately chose this as the name. Tatsumi Ono, who is familiar with the American hybrid rices in the news lately, examined my rice and said that no short-culmed japonica rice produces more grains per ear than Happy Hill. As for taste, I'd say that it is average — certainly adequate for practical purposes.