Source: The Asahi Shimbun                Date: 07 July, 2010

A new dispute between developing and industrialized countries is expected to reach a head at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP10) meeting in Nagoya in October. Developing countries are demanding a larger share of benefits from their supplies of the plants and micro-organisms that form the raw materials for many food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics products. Companies in industrialized nations that develop these products already fear that these "genetic resources" may no longer be readily available if new rules favor developing countries.

In summer 2007, Mr. Gentaro Yasuda of Calpis Co. traveled to Mongolia in search of new types of lactic acid bacteria. He visited the portable tent dwellings of nomadic tribes to sample and compare airag, a type of homemade fermented horse milk liquor whose recipes date back thousands of years. Calpis, with a research institute affiliated with the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, concluded an agreement with the Mongolian government that stipulates that bacterium will be isolated at a Mongolian laboratory, the isolated strains will be stored in both countries, and a fixed sum will be paid to the Mongolian side at the time of any patent application.

The United Nations Environment Program estimates that the market using genetic resources is worth USD800 billion to USD1 trillion annually. In 2002, developing countries formed an alliance, saying that most of the benefits derived from genetic resources are being monopolized by businesses and research institutes from industrialized nations.