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A grassy rice field seen at close distance. The sky is clear and can also be seen reflected in the water.
Image of a wild rice field.

The Wild Rice Genome Project maps the wild rice genome.

2000

The Story of The Patenting of Life
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Image of a wild rice field.

The biopiracy of wild rice began when large companies started producing this crop without honoring its relationship to the Anishinaabeg people of Minnesota, who for generations have tended to the growth and harvest of wild rice, which is traditional to their lands.

Indigenous activist Winona LaDuke (Mississippi Band of Anishinaabe Indians) writes: “The wild rice harvest of the Anishinaabeg not only feeds the body, it feeds the soul, continuing a tradition which is generations old for these people of the lakes and rivers of the north" (LaDuke, 2021).

Companies like Indian Harvest and Norcal Wild patent the wild rice seed and produce it for profit. Between 2000-2001, Ron Phillips, a plant geneticist at the University of Minnesota, will finish mapping the wild rice genome, along with other colleagues. The $21 million wild rice business will greatly benefit from this study. Two of the researchers represent DuPont and Monsanto, which are the two largest seed companies in the world.