New Delhi, June 13: Seed and biotechnology companies are stockpiling patents involving genes that allow plants to endure environmental stresses, conservation advocates have said, dubbing it a “corporate grab of climate-proof genes”.

Large seed and agrochemical corporations and their biotechnology partners have filed 532 patent documents involving genes that help crops withstand stresses such as drought, heat, and saline (salt-laden) soils, an international non-government group engaged in promoting conservation and ecological diversity has said.

The companies are “staking sweeping patent claims on genes related to environmental stresses, not just those in a single engineered plant species, but also to a substantially similar genetic sequence in virtually all engineered food crops”, the ETC Group based in Ottawa, Canada, has claimed.

“They’re using climate change to promote genetically engineered stress-tolerant crops, but stress-tolerant traits have been developed by traditional farmers through breeding down the centuries,” Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva said today, releasing a copy of the report from the ETC Group.

Shiva said farmers in Bengal and Orissa have grown salt-tolerant rice varieties for generations. Three rice varieties — Matla, Getu and Hamilton — grown in the tidal waters of the Sunderbans can tolerate 14 per cent salinity.

The ETC Group has catalogued a sample of patents involving climate-tolerant crop technologies which include a number of patent claims on generation of plants with improved tolerance to drought, salt and (environmental) stress.

It said patents on stress-tolerant traits in crops could drive up costs, inhibit independent research and undermine the rights of farmers to save and exchange seeds.

Most of the patents catalogued by the group have been filed in North America, Europe and Australia.

Although any commercial crops based on these patents still appear several years away, environmentalists believe the patented products could have the potential to impact farmers in India as well, through policies the government may adopt in future.

“As the climate crisis deepens, there is a danger that governments will require farmers to adopt prescribed biotech traits that are deemed essential adaptation measures,” the report said.