Biodiversity, grassroots green innovations and

poverty alleviation

role of institutions, initiatives and incentives

Anil k GuptaSristi and

Indian institute of management, ahmedabad

anilg@sristi.orgwww.sristi.org www.nifindia.org

www.indiainnovates.com

SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions, 1993) is a developmental voluntary

organization, set up to strengthen the Honey Bee Network of grassroots innovators engaged in conserving biodiversity and

developing sustainable solutions to local problems.

http://www.sristi.org Note on SRISTI

biodiversity

Modern R and D

Give me a place to stand, I will move the word

Poverty and biodiversity

Has any global evidence emerged after 1989-1991 papers?

Gupta, A.K. (1991a) "Why does poverty persist in regions of high biodiversity? : a case for indigenous property right system", Int. conf. on Property Rights & Genetic Resources sponsored by IUCN, UNEP and ACTS at Kenya, June 10-16, 1991 ; Gupta, A.K. (1991b) "Sustainability Through Biodiversity: Designing Crucible of Culture, Creativity and Conscience", International Conference on Biodiversity and Conservation held at Danish Parliament, Copenhagen, November 8, 1991. IIMA Working Paper No.1005.; Ecology, Market Forces and Design of Resource Delivery Organizations, paper prepared for International Conference on Organizational and BehaviouralPerspective for Social Development, Dec. 29, 1986-January 2, 1987 also in Int. Studies in Management and

Organization, 18(4) 64-82, 1989, Gupta Anil K 1997b Managing Ecological Diversity, Simultaneity, Complexityand Change:. An Ecological Perspective. W.P.No. 825. IIM Ahmedabad. P 115, 1989

http://www.povertymap.net/publications/doc/iucn_2004/stunting.cfm

Narrow base of food basket

“Of the approximately 270,000 known species of higher plants, 10,000-15,000 edible species are known, of which around 7,000 have been

used in agriculture, although only a few hundred are deemedto be important at a national level.

Thirty crop species alone provide an estimated 90% of the world population’s calorific requirements, with wheat, rice, and maize

providing about half the caloriesconsumed globally. Although several hundred species of animals have

been used for human food at one time or another, 14 species of livestock currently account for 90% of global livestock production”.

Source:http://www.unep-wcmc.org/latenews/Biodiversity%20and%20Poverty%20Reduction%20UNEP-WCMC.pdf

Also see, poverty and biodiversity linkage http://www.undp.org/biodiversity/biodiversitycd/BioBrief1-poverty.pdf 2006

Climate change, poverty, biodiversity

“Overwhelming scientific evidence implicates greenhouse gases generated by human activity in changing the global climate.

Simultaneously, record numbers of people subsist in poverty and massive biodiversity losses continue largely unabated. Making

matters worse, these challenges reinforce one another. Climate change can exacerbate poverty and accelerate biodiversity loss.

Poverty often forces local people to exploit their environment unsustainably. And degraded environments in turn can contribute to

poverty and hasten climate change”.

First ever standards linking climate change, biodiversity and poverty seek global peer review, 08.06.2004, http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/bericht-

30050.html

Process:

The biodiversity is high in the rain forests, mountains, some of the arid and semi arid

areas, humid areas, primarily due to diversity in soil, climate and other physical

and social structures.

Why do markets for diversity not arise?( except wine, cheese, honey to some

extent)Can innovations help?

Why demand for diverse colors, tastes, shapes and qualities of natural products not exist?.

Markets are ruthless

is manual always better than machines?

Mead beer Wine

: fermentation of flavours

Mead source, south africa : http://iqhilika.co.za/index.htm

• Products of mass consumption particularly when processed by machines have low variability because throughput by machines has to be of uniform quality and maturity level ( for instance for processing tomatoes to make ketchup, local varieties will not be suitable because these are not synchronous in maturity, have uneven ripening status and thus, taste, color and flavour can not be standardized).

• The cost of inventory, transportation, display in shelves of a large varieties of say tomato is obviously quite high compared to only one or few varieties.

• Consumers who do not demand larger varieties either because they have not been exposed to the same or are unwilling to pay the extra costs, also contribute to lower demand of biodiverseproducts.

Bread, beer and wine:

Saccharomyces cerevisiae diversity reflects human history, JEAN-LUC LEGRAS, DIDIER MERDINOGLU, JEAN-MARIE CORNUET,RANCIS

KARST, Molecular Ecology, 16 (10) 2091-2102, May 2007

• Fermented beverages and foods have played a significant role in most societies worldwide for millennia. • To better understand how the yeast species Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the main fermenting agent,

evolved along this historical and expansion process, we analysed the genetic diversity among 651 strains from 56 different geographical origins, worldwide. Their genotyping at 12 microsatellite loci revealed 575 distinct genotypes organized in subgroups of yeast types, i.e. bread, beer, wine, sake. Some of these groups presented unexpected relatedness:

• .However, up to 28% of genetic diversity between these technological groups was associated with geographical differences which suggests local domestications.

• Focusing on wine yeasts, a group of Lebanese strains were basal in an FST tree, suggesting a Mesopotamia-based origin of most wine strains.

• In Europe, migration of wine strains occurred through the Danube Valley, and around the Mediterranean Sea. An approximate Bayesian computation approach suggested a postglacial divergence (most probable period 10 000–12 000 bp). As our results suggest intimate association between man and wine yeast across centuries, we hypothesize that yeast followed man and vine migrations as a commensalmember of grapevine flora.

Five key lessons from the experience of honey bee network

a) Building a regional, national, and international registry of traditional knowledge and innovations based on biodiversity may help in reducing transaction costs of the potential entrepreneurs, investors, fellow learning communities and even traders;

Innovations and traditional knowledge

InvestmentEnterprise

GOLDEN TRIANGLE OF

CREATIVITY

Transaction costs Searching information: biodiversity leads, opportunities for investment, value addition

finding suppliers

negotiation

Drawing up a contract

Ex -ante

Ex -poste

Monitoring and enforcing compliance

Side payments

Conflict resolution

Redrawing the contract if nothing else works

• How do we share the benefits?

How to reward: Portfolio of Incentives for farmers’

innovations

non-material-collective

Policy changes

Pedagogic changes

material-collectiveTrust fundsVenture and incubation

fundsCollective awards

Supp for Institutionbuilding

endowments

non-material-individual

RecognitionHonourMemorial

material-individual

Ipr or non ipr based awardsAwardsR and d grants

Endowments

Forms of incentivesMaterial non material

Target Of individual

Incentives

collective

b) Compliance with the Prior Informed Consent of the communities to respect their knowledge rights for eventual benefit sharing, keeping in mind the share of not only individual knowledge holders, but also their communities, nature conservation, and the ones who add value and augment innovations/ Traditional knowledge etc., in a transparent manner;

c) pooling the best traditional practices and grassroots innovations where necessary to develop new natural products for diffusion through commercial and non commercial channels. These could be through small and medium scale enterprises, having benefit sharing contracts with small or medium scale corporations; even large corporation, cooperatives and other forms of economic initiatives

Horizontal markets

d)development of lateral or horizontal markets instead of reliance only on verticals; so that many of the self help micro finance groups move towards micro-venture finance based entrepreneurial groups

( we have heard a great deal about micro finance, when did we last hear about micro venture finance? ) ,

e) Open source technology banks as well as IP protected knowledge base to support livelihoodoptions of disadvantaged communities

.

In order to pursue these objectives, SRISTI has organized Traditional Food Festivals,

Shodh Yatras (walk through the villages every summer and winter, so far we have walked about 4,000 km in India),

natural product development in Sadbhav-SRISTI-Sanshodhan -laboratory, create demand for richer and diverse food of poor people in urban areas to

create market and non market based models of poverty alleviation and sustainable resource use practices.

Recipe competitions

Traditional food festival

Shodh yatra : learning walk, 19th walk in Jammu and kashmir, June, 2007

Local Knowledge: Global InstitutionsWhy should local knowledge experts disclose

their knowledge to institutional experts

Asymmetry in standards of IP protection

• organized sectors vis a vis unorganized sectors of knowledge

• knowledge produced in long past and the one developed in recent past

• Knowledge , innovations and practices produced by individuals vis a vis by communities

1.How does one address the tensions in dealing with public, community and private proprietary knowledge around local community, public and privately managed biodiversity resources?

PUBKOAR-12PUBKPR-11PUBKCR-10PUBKPR-9Public

CKOA R-8CKPR-7CKCR-6CKPR-5Community

PK-OA R-4PKPR-3PKCR-2PKPR-1Private

Open accessPublicCommunityPrivateKnowledge right regimes

Resource right regimes

1) Protection of Traditional Knowledge

Within the Traditional knowledge systems, there are innovations and improvements by individuals and communities which need protection so that potential investors can have incentives to invest and recover one’s investments.

IF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE is public domain, then there is no reason for any exploiter of this knowledge with in or outside the country to have obligation to compensate or reward the knowledge provider.

Further, the TKs in many cases when blended with modern scienceand technology can generate immensely valuable solutions for societal problems and opportunities for improving livelihood opportunities for knowledge holders.

Another very important ethical, moral and institutional issue is as to why

should traditional knowledge holders be expected to disclose their knowledge to national research institutions when these institutions can not protect their rights?

See the Experience of National Innovation Foundation, India ( www.nifindia.org )

Ethical correction required in knowledge economy

lessons of honey bee network

All university and research institute scientists in developing and developed countries, working on Traditional knowledge must be advised to use PIC form ( see www.nifindia.org ) so that they do not publish the results of their research without complying with the following guidelines

• (a) share it back with the knowledge holders and providers in local language,

• (b) take prior informed consent of the traditional knowledge holders, and

• (c) ascertain uniqueness of their results so that intellectual property rights protection opportunities are not missed.

• (d) feel obliged to share part of their pecuniary gains if any, through the licensing of such technologies produced through value addition in traditional knowledge, back with the specific communities or a national or international fund.

• (e) help in managing this fund may be managed by non-bureaucratic body responsible for sharing it fairly and without much transaction costs with traditional knowledge holders.

• (f) change the guidelines of AAAS, SSRC of developed countries and other research bodies around the world urgently to reflect this ethical correction.

• (g) develop collecting society model developed for music for reducing transaction costs of the knowledge holders

Every patent applicant is obliged to disclose whether the resource and/or knowledge obtained from third parties for developing the patent claims have

been obtained lawfully and rightfully.

The ‘lawful’ access would imply that whatever laws exist in the source countries, have been complied with. The ‘rightful’ would imply that the prior

informed consent of the knowledge providers has been obtained.

Disclosure requirement in patent applications

• International registry of sustainable technological innovations and traditional knowledge• SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions) had

made a proposal for INSTAR (International Network for Sustainable Technology Applications and Registration) in 1993. The purpose is to provide a low transaction cost system to innovators and traditional knowledge holders to obtain worldwide protection and have incentives for disclosure. Traditional knowledge holders in many developing countries which do not have capacity to set up such systems in next decade or two would suffer if such a registry was not there

• In TRIPS there is a provision for an international registry to be negotiated for wines and spirits. There is no reason why such a negotiation should only concern itself with the interests of a particular European country at whose behest, this clause was incorporated in the TRIPS.

•[1] National and international registry systems have been proposed to incorporate the elements of innovation patent system so as to provide incentives to local communities, herbalists and developers of plant varieties to share their knowledge without forgoing the benefits possible through intellectual property protection. The issue still remains as to whether knowledge produced over a long period of time through cumulative contribution of communities in a given region should get only a short duration protection and that too with limited claims. There are several other reasons why a registry may help the innovators and TK holders even if with shorter duration protection:

• the possibility for potential investors, entrepreneurs and R and D partners toseek collaboration with innovators and TK holders would be very low if theydid not have access to registry which would reduce transaction costs (TC) inthe process,

• the possibility of willing partners filing joint IPRs for longer duration may alsobe low if the registry was not there,

• the technological obsolescence factor being high, many leads might not havemuch value if not explored within ten years any way,

• the possibility of learning from one another might increase if there was aregistry. Many times this goal gets neglected in the debate and to us in Honey Bee network, lateral learning among the local innovators and communities is a central concern. Surviving collectively is some thing that registry can facilitate.

• The cost of filing patent can be very high. For example, a US patent application in 90s could be about 20,000 USD while in EU, it could cost twice that amount. However, this cost varies a great deal and in thirty two countries it was found to vary from USD 355 to 4772 in 1990s (Helfgott, 1993). We need to devise ways of reducing these costs for small innovators and traditional communities. INSTAR, an international registry might offer one way.

Grassroots to global( G 2 G), new mantra

• So far the globalisation has meant generally squeezing of spaces for small innovators and entrepreneurs. It has been by and large a one-way street. The Honey Bee Network has been trying to reverse this process. It is trying to create a new ethics and institutional culture in which grassroots innovations developed by often uneducated or less educated or valorised to address global as well as local demands.

• Already the innovative products from Indian grassroots have reached five continents. But, a great deal remains to be done.

•

Poor not just as consumers alone, but as providers

• the mechanism of mentoring small, scattered and disconnected innovators without access to much education, banking or communication systems is not easy. Distributed mentoring is a challenge that we have to meet, if Grassroots to Global (G2G) has to become an international reality. In other words, if triangle of linking innovation, investment and enterprise has to be formed across the world, then transaction costs of each actor will have to be reduced considerably using on-line and off line platforms (see Tianjindeclaration, China, May 31, 2007, www.sristi.org).

• Assume that a Norwegian entrepreneur selects an innovation from India and wants to set up an enterprise in South Africa with investment from say, US, then a G2G model would have come about. Likewise, if entrepreneurs in developed countries can find applications for ideas of grassroots innovators in third world, then a poverty alleviation model will emerge which would look at poor as provider of solutions. Diversity, development, dignity will manifest when ethics, equity, excellence, efficiency, empathy, environment and education fuse.

Sristi’s Formula of sharing of benefits

• Innovator 30 per cent • Nature 05 • Community 05 • Innovation Fund 20 • ( to help other healers,• Herbalist, innovators) • Research & Field Trials 15 • Overhead expenses 15 • Contingency Fund 05 • Women knowledge promotion Fund 05 • Total 100

composition

• Herbavate Cream Composition• 1Each 10 gm contains;1Oil extract equivalent

to: 1Calotropis gigantea (Aak). :4gm,. Curcuma longa (Haldi). :0.5gm,. Pongamia glabra(Karanja). :0.1gm,. Solanum xanthocarpum(Kantakari). :0.2gm,. Camphor (Kapoor). :2% w/w,. Apricot oil. :0.04ml,. in a cream base

• All ingredients have proven efficacy in Ayurveda.

Mind to market: the case of herbavate

Herbvate: a skin ointment

• Herbavate s based on the knowledge of seven innovators from six districts Sabarkanth, Panchmahal, Dang, Mahsana, Patan and Bhavnagar of Gujarat. Herbavate exhibits remarkable properties against eczema and variety of inflammatory and infectious skin conditions.

• The innovators of Herbavate: 1. Amratbhai ShankarbhaiRawal, Mehsana Gujarat. 2. Kunjubhai KakadiyabhaiBhoya, Dang Gujarat 3. Pujabhai Dabhi, Sabarkantha, Gujarat 4. Karshanbhai Parmar, Sabarkantha Gujarat 5. Laxmanbhai Pagi, Panchmahal, Gujarat 6. LilabhaiRawal, Patan Gujarat 7. Lakhabhai Becharbhai Khatana, Bhavnagar Gujarat

Growth pr0motersTechnology developed by sristi lab by pooling local knowledge of farmers and herbalists licensed to Matrix agro-chemicals

Raw materials sourced form people

Benefits to be shared during dec 1-4, 2007

What can be done with it?

• Summing up:

What is the resource in which poor are rich?

knowledge, values, ethics

• What do we do:

• Document, valorize, pool the best practices, develop new products and take these to social and economic markets

• Benefits sharing will take place only when value is added and markets are made to work in favour of poor

– Honey bee network has shown, it is possible

Journey of augmenting grassroots innovations continues

• Creativity counts• Knowledge matters

Innovations transformIncentives inspire

• Join honey bee network, help creative knowledge rich economically poor people learn from each other

• honeybee@sristi.org www.sristi.org www.nifindia.orgwww.indiainnovates.com

• Gian.org