Global business ethics lesson 09

LESSON

9
DEPLETION OF NATURAL RESOURCES
CONTENTS
9.0

Aims and Objectives

9.1

Introduction

9.2

Controlling the Agribusiness

9.3

Critical Concerns

9.4

Some other Issues

9.5

Conservation of Resources

9.6

Let us Sum up

9.7

Lesson End Activity

9.8

Keywords

9.9

Questions for Discussion

9.10

Suggested Readings

9.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
After studying this lesson, you should be able to understand:
z

The depletion of natural resources

z

The most critical concerns facing the world community for the next 15-26 years

9.1 INTRODUCTION
Seeds are the beginning of food, the first link in the food chain. Control seeds and you

control food. Yet, take a stroll through any of the North's supermarkets and the threat
of such control seems patently absurd. The cornucopia of fruits, vegetables and
canned goods lining the shopping aisles may total average of 11,000 separate good
products. Another 7,000 products are test-marketed each year. Such abundance and
diversify makes any thought of rood monopolies Seem ridiculous.
In fact the North's food choices are narrowing and food quality is declining. We eat
less fresh fruits and vegetables than we did in the comparatively dismal days
following World War II. Today's diet contains a quarter of the apples our grandparents
ate and consumption of garden 'greens' and beans in North America has been
declining since the 1950s. The US government surveys show only nine vegetables
make a significant nutritional contribution to the American diet.
North America and Western Europe is 'meat and potatoes' country. We occasionally
dabble in exotic foods from some small corner of Mother Nature’s pantry. But our
overwhelming vegetable choices boil down to maize (corn), peas and carrots.
In fact diversity has never been a strong suit in the North's agricultural system. 95
percent of all human nutrition is from only thirty plants and three quarters of world
energy requirements come from eight basic crops. There may be 300,000 potential

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food plants out there in nature but the marketing strategies of agribusiness have
managed to ignore most of them virtually every major food plant in the industrialized
countries originated in the Third World. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, traditional
farmers continue to cultivate seeds and crops that form the genetic base for all plant
breeding and our entire food system.

After more than 10 million of selection by nature and by farmers, the plant genetic
diversity of the Third World makes if the 'mother lode' of raw materials for modern
plant breeding. Northern agronomists must return to the Third World regularly in
order to find new genes (the building blocks of plant breeding) to insert into crops in
the North. We may be grain-rich but we are gene-poor.
The problem is that the genetic base of the major food crops in the Third World is
being wiped out. As these old seeds vanish so does our food security. As new 'Green
Revolution' varieties spread around the Third World, farmers eat the old seed and
plant the new. Geneticist Garrison Wilkes describes the effect of these phenomena as
'building the roof with stones from the foundation.'
Events in the early 1970s served to accelerate the destruction of our food base and
make the control of seeds possible. Shell Oil (oil company) noted then that two major
changes had affected the seed industry: the Green Revolution and Plant Breeders'
Rights.
For companies the size of Shell Oil, the success of the new 'super seeds' showed that
the North's aid agencies were ready to underwrite a global seed industry. Third World
governments would have the funds to subsidize seed prices and world markets could
be found for new commercial seeds. In the same year that Normal Borlaug picked up
the Nobel Peace Prize for leading the Green Revolution, the United States adopted
plant patent legislation.
In one stroke the global market for patented seeds tripled. With patents, companies
could look to exclusive monopoly control over a new plant variety. This monopoly
provision (Plant Breeders' Right) would allow big companies to vertically integrate
from breeding to seed retailing. The threat of patent litigation would bar small family
based seed companies from the competition.
From a standing start in 1970, Shell Oil now markets seeds through at least 60
companies in Europe, North America, Latin America and Africa. It is by far the
largest seed enterprise in the world.
Close behind are the two Swiss chemical twins, Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy - with 22 and
30 companies respectively. Other European majors -none of whom appear to

have been in the seed business a decade ago - are Sweden's Kena Nobel and
Cardo; France's Aquaitaine and Rohne - Poulenc, and Holland's Suiker - Unie.
Across the pond the Americans caught on fast; dominant companies now include
Pfizer, Upjohn, Olin, Occidental Petroleum, Stauffer Chemicals, Atlantic-Rickfield
and Superior Oil.
It appears more than 400 firms have been bought up or chased out over the past ten
years. The effect in the marketplace has been astonishing. For the first time ever US
seed prices broke their traditional link to former commodity prices to rise at a rate
exceeding all other agricultural input costs - including petroleum products. Seed
prices in the United States doubled and doubled again in the course of a decade. One
forage crop, alfalfa, jumped from just over $22 a sack in 1967 to $ 111 in 1978.
At the same time multinationals moved to consolidate their control of both patents and
the market. In a land of seed companies dating back to Cromwell's day, three
multinationals took over England's packet seed (vegetables and flowers) trade. Shell
Oil, Kema Nobel and Cardo now have 78 per cent of the retail business after buying
out local firms.


Seed industry sources in the UK claim Shell accounts for 40 per cent of all plant
patent royalties in that country. Often the same companies exert the same patent
influence around the industrialized world from Sweden to New Zealand.

9.2 CONTROLING THE AGRIBUSINESS
Farmers and consumers in many countries are particularly concerned that the world's
new seeds are almost exclusively from the chemical side of agribusiness. Since seeds
flow through the same marketing channels as crop chemicals, this is hardly surprising,
but analysts are worried that chemical giants may reap special advantages from the
dovetailing of their plant breeding and crop protection work. Certainly, the possibility
exists that companies may offer farmers a 'package deal' of seeds and chemicals.
New work in seed packing is increasing the market for clay wrapped seed complete

with chemical inoculates - thus making the farmer an offer he can't refuse.
Ciba-Geigy has recently come up with the perfect seeds and chemicals package.
With its patented sorghum varieties, the company now offers a trio of chemical seed
'safeners'. Two combat pests in the soil while the third protects the seeds from
Ciba-Geigy's leading herbicide spray 'Dual' which might otherwise harm the seed.
This is known as the Clint Eastwood' approach to plant breeding ('Any which way
you can') Of still greater concern is the potential for seed / chemical companies to
profit by simply doing nothing if and when a disease attacks a crop. Rather than find
an 'organic' way of combating a new disease with an improved variety, the company
may merely refer farmers to the chemicals already on the shelf.
As disturbing as the corporate trend is in the North it is reaching crisis proportions in
the South. There has been an overly aggressive marketing of genetic explosion beyond
the capacity of germplasm. The big companies are only interested in the large acreage
crops, often export crops. These tend'-to; take over traditional poor people's crops or
move into climatic zones and soils inappropriate to the commercial variety.
This 'commerciogenic wipe-out' has led to intense efforts to collect and store
endangered germplasm. Through the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources
(IBPGR), a campaign to establish a system of global gene banks for storage of crop
material is now over eight years old. Of the more than 30 crops for which base
collections have been established, virtually every crop of economic importance has
been assigned to the North - to countries with Plant Breeders' Rights monopolies.
It is estimated that 75-90 per cent of all Third World plant genetic resources in
storage is in the North. Plant Breeders' Rights provisions that allow someone to
simply 'discover' a new variety and obtain exclusive rights infuriate many Third
World scientists. Such a loose provision leads to the direct rip-off of Third World
treasures. A case in point is US patent No. 551 awarded some years ago to Quincy
Mckeen who found the rare flowers on a stroll in Guatemala. He scooped up all he
could find and hot footed it back to his New England home where he grew out
the seeds - kept the best and destroyed the rest of the natural diversity to avoid
competition. The Third World governments are not anxious to be any further indebted

to multinational corporations. As one diplomat said at the FAO conference in Rome
recently,’ give us this day our daily bread' should not be a prayer to Shell Oil.
Check Your Progress 1
State whether the following statements are true or false:
1.

North America and Western Europe is ‘meat and potato’ country.

2.

Ciba-Geigy is the largest seed enterprise in the world followed by Shell
Oil.

3.

75-90 per cent of all the third world plant genetic resources in storage are
in the North.

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9.3 CRITICAL CONCERNS
The most critical concerns facing the World Community for the next 15-26 years are
as follows:
1. Food: World hunger is increasing. Over 15,000 people die of starvation or
malnutrition related causes in a day. Some cannot afford to consume for survival,

while some others are privileged to consume only for enjoyment.
2. Population: While population growth rates have slowed down in the industrial
countries, the overall world population is expected to increase by 50 per cent from
present levels of. Over one million people are added to the population of the
world every 5 days. About 90 per cent of this increase will be in poorer nations.
India's population has already risen to over a billion.
3. Environment: There is only one air, one water and one land system for our planet
earth. Upon these interrelated systems, the biosphere, the survival and heart of all
life forms and all people depend. Damage to one part upsets the whole system.
Already the fertility of the topsoil and the quality of sanitary water supply are
badly affected. Water-related diseases kill 10 million people every year. These
diseases are the leading killers of children. Again, oceans as the vital source of
food and oxygen supply are being poisoned day by day. USA alone now
discharges over 50 million tons off wastes per year into the ocean. Forests are
vital to the earth's oxygen supply and to control Carbon dioxide. Even the
Amazon jungle, known as the lungs of the world, is at a grave danger. A heat
plant and water system is very essential for the earth's oxygen supply. Chemical
pollutants and radiation from nuclear testing further deteriorate the quality of the
air we breathe.
4. Health: 80 per cent of the people in the world are without adequate health care
services. One billion people suffer from long standing malnutrition and tropical
parasite diseases. Blindness affects 30 to 40 pillion people in the Third World.
5. Housing: About 800 million people lack adequate shelter. In cities of Third
World, 250 million people live in slums and sleep on pavements. Many of them
are born there and are destined to die there.
6. Education and Literacy: Only 47 per cent of the world's school-age children
attend schools. In some countries the percentage of illiteracy is 70 per cent of the
population. Most illiterates in the world are women - in the poorest countries $5
per cent illiterate, while in the richest 1 percent.
7. Poverty and Development: The average income of the richest region, North

America, is 60 times larger than the average in the poorest region, South Asia.
Over a billion people, that is, one fourth of world population, live in countries
with an average income below $200 yearly. The gap between the high and lowincome regions of the world is widening, hi India the top fifth of the population
has more than 60 per cent of the national wealth, and the bottom fifth has less than
5 per cent of it.
8. Unemployment: There are about 20 million people out of work in developed
countries and an estimated 455 million jobless or underemployed people in
developing countries.
9. Human Rights: The world has still to overcome discrimination among people on
the basis of color, caste and creed. Apartheid in South Africa is a case in point.
10. Terrorism: Lately, terrorism has become an international issue, raising its ugly
head in different parts of the world.


11. Resource and Scarcity: Depletion of resources goes at a faster rate than the
earth's capacity to renew them. Some are non-renewable. Oil is only one example.
12. Transnational Corporations: Some TNCs have more assets and higher income
than many nations. Their power is extensive - South Africa, Chile, Brazil - some
of these corporations have been involved in the toppling of local governments,
interference in labour organizations and the elimination of small, local enterprises
through unfair practices - Union Carbide and the Bhopal gas tragedy.
13. Alienation: As these problems escalate unchecked, there is a growing sense of
despair and alienation. Many seeing no sign of hope predict a 'doomsday' in the
near future.
We are at a crisis point. But should a crisis be necessarily a breakdown or can it be
also a breakthrough?
Here is the scope for a discussion on a new world order, a more human and human
order.

9.4 SOME OTHER ISSUES

Global interdependence now makes a mockery of territorial boundaries. This fact
makes it imperative that we seek world order alternatives as a basis for true security
and well-being. Examples of this interdependence include:
1. Industrial pollutants from Ruhr in Germany have travelled 6000 miles to Alaska.
2. Inflation is a global reality no longer controllable by national fiscal and monetary
policy alone.
3. The jobs of millions of workers in the West are dependent upon exports to
developing countries.
Developing nations supply over 40 per cent of the world's total energy needs, close to
100 per cent of US requirements for natural rubber, tin, and the bauxite used for
aluminium. Tree growths, food crops and the fish population in freshwater lakes have
suffered from acid rain originating in industrial areas thousands of miles away.
The number of people held hostage to the threat of nuclear catastrophe has reached
4,500,000,000.
Check Your Progress 2
Fill in the blanks:
1.

__________ are the beginning of food, the first link in the food chain.

2.

__________ in many countries are particularly concerned that the world's
new seeds are almost exclusively from the chemical side of agribusiness.

3.

__________ is World Environmental Day.

9.5 CONSERVATION OF RESOURCES

The training of military personnel in the United States alone costs twice as
much public money per year as the education budget for the 3000,000,000 school
age children in South Asia.
The Amazon jungle - known as the lungs of the world because it produces one
quarter of the earth's oxygen supply - is being rapidly cut down by the Brazilian
government and multinational corporations in the search for scarce resources
deemed essential for 'national security'.

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Public expenditures for health care, housing, and programs for the poor and
elderly are out, while military budgets escalate.
Environmental protection laws and programmes are repealed in view of 'national
security' goals related to trade and energy.
Small circles of nations, security elites increasingly make national decisions
concerning, monetary and scarce resource security.
With a stockpile of nuclear weapons which is one million times greater than the
destruction, of the Hiroshima bomb, the bigger powers are still investing good
amounts to upgrade their nuclear arsenals.
If present trends continue - lack of a world security system - nuclear scientists
predict nuclear war in the immediate future.
The environment is the most precious asset of the Indian people. Unfortunately, over
the years we have denuded and destroyed our environment in many ways.
Both droughts and floods have ravaged India, over the last decades. Increasing
environmental destruction is also increasing the hazard-proneness of the affected

areas. Of all the environmental problems facing the country, the problem of
deforestation has received the maximum public attention. The latest satellite data
confirm that India is losing 1.3 million hectares of forest every year.
The cost of forest loss due to construction of dams is very high and large dams have
drowned millions of hectares of forests.
It is time for the government to muster the political will and courage to reverse the
environmental degeneration.
Farmers and consumers in many countries are particularly concerned that the world's
new seeds are almost exclusively from the chemical side of agribusiness.

9.6 LET US SUM UP
Thousands of workers die everywhere because of occupational diseases, the gravest
one caused by various types of dust like asbestos dust, slate pencil dust, and the dust
at various mining sites. One million miners suffer from silicosis.
Mosquito-born diseases are rapidly growing and grossly under-reported. Malaria
incidents may be as high as 20 million though official statistics claim only 2.16
million. Malaria, dengue, Japanese encephalitis and various other epidemics are a
result of the steady degeneration of the environment.
The above analysis indicates the severity of environmental destruction in India. It is
time for life government to muster the political will and courage to reverse the
environmental degeneration. If the Government does not act, the progressive
environmental degeneration will worsen the plight of the poor and the rich alike.

9.7 LESSON END ACTIVITY
Depletion of natural resources refers to a state of exhaustion of resources. Explain.

9.8 KEYWORDS
Environment: Surrounding conditions by which living forms are influenced in their
growth.
Pollution: Discharge into the environment of toxic substances.

Depletion: The using up of a natural resource.


9.9 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Many of the preventive techniques are used, but only few are successful. Give
your comment on this.
2. Give reasons for depletion of natural resources.
3. List out the importance of natural resources.
4. Give the implications of depletion of natural resources.

Check Your Progress: Model Answers
CYP 1
1. True,

2. False, 3. True

CYP 2
1. Seeds
2. Farmers and consumers
3. June 5th

9.10 SUGGESTED READINGS
Manuel G. Velasquez, Business Ethics.
Laura P. Hart Man, Business Ethics.
John R. Boat Right, Ethics in Conduct of Business.
William A. Wines, Ethics Law and Business.

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