Gene Editing Cocoa... Mars is gene-editing cacao trees in California. The pollen carrying the proprietary DNA will reach West Africa. So who now owns the cacao tree?

Under existing patent law, the smallholder farmer whose trees get cross-pollinated by engineered pollen could lose ownership of the next generation of his own trees. The U.S. and Canadian Supreme Courts have both ruled that ownership of a plant is no defense against a patent on its genes. Cacao is self-incompatible and depends on cross-pollination. There is no biological defense against engineered pollen drifting in from a neighboring plantation.

Mars has been running a CRISPR cacao program at UC Berkeley since 2018. Across eight years of press releases, university announcements, and trade coverage, I cannot find a single public statement about how the engineered cacao trees will be prevented from cross-pollinating their neighbors. And beyond.

Eight years. No containment disclosed.

The technology to build the fence into the seed has existed for thirty years. A 2023 review in the journal Plants catalogs the options. The Berkeley-Mars team has not used any of it.

If you own the gene, you own the fence. Or don’t plant it.