The entire rice genome sequence was announced Jan. 26 by the European agribusiness giant Syngenta and US company Myriad Genetics which patented two breast cancer genes. They beat a public consortium of scientists in Japan, China, Korea, Europe and the US by two years.
Rice is the first crop plant to be sequenced.
The announcement triggered alarm from Action Aid, the hunger charity. Rice has been domesticated by human beings for 5000 years. ISIS is not at all assured. If human genomics is anything to go by, it would take no time at all to cover the rice genome dozens of times over with patents that will not only stifle independent research and innovation but also seriously undermine farmers' rights to create new varieties or to preserve existing ones. The Guardian Saturday January 27.