SECTION: PART A; NATION; Pg. A4

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HEADLINE: Pies fly over university's deals on genetically altered foods

BYLINE: Thomas D. Elias; SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

DATELINE: BERKELEY, Calif.

BODY:
   BERKELEY, Calif. - Protesters inspired by the Green Party twice in the past two weeks threw pies at the faces of top University of California officials for making big-money deals with companies that market genetically engineered food products.

Two pie tossers were arrested when they tried to pelt Gordon Rausser, dean of UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources, with pumpkin pies as he signed a deal for $25 million a year giving Swiss food and pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG first negotiating rights to any discoveries stemming from research funded by the agreement.

While commercial firms often sponsor university research, the Berkeley-Novartis pact is believed to be the first ever committing the full intellectual output of an entire college to one company.

Berkeley's natural resources college has pioneered development of genetically altered strawberries and tomatoes, producing fruits and vegetables that last weeks longer on store shelves and in consumers' refrigerators than natural products.

The university can now use all Novartis proprietary technology for its advanced research, while the company essentially gets the right of first refusal on acquiring the rights to any new products. Berkeley keeps both the patents for any inventions and the right to collect royalties on them.

The pie tossers deny formal affiliation with the Green political party, but the party makes no secret of its opposition to both the Berkeley deal and a similar agreement in the works between the university's Davis campus and Monsanto Corp., which also makes genetically engineered crops.

Davis chancellor Larry Vanderhoef was hit in the face with a banana cream pie at a lunch briefing on that campus during his negotiations just a day before the Berkeley contract was announced. The pie thrower there has not been caught or identified, although the groups claiming responsibility for the Berkeley attack also say they hit Mr. Vanderhoef.

Those groups include the so-called Hexterminators and the Biotic Baking Brigade. The latter group last month arranged for pies to be thrown in the faces of San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope.

One representative of the Green Party of California, Hank Chapot, said his group has long opposed genetically engineered agriculture. "It can have vast unintended consequences," he said.

Mr. Chapot said genetically altered corn produced by Novartis in Europe has cross-pollinated nearby natural corn. So far, there have been no reports of negative consequences of such accidental interbreeding.

Many of the same individuals who are active Greens conducted protests in the 1980s, when Berkeley began testing its altered strawberries near the town of Brentwood, about 20 miles east of San Francisco Bay. The Greens argued then that the changed plants could create poisonous fruits or other hazards. No such problems have been documented.

Meanwhile, Berkeley officials say their agreement with Novartis contains safeguards to protect academic freedom while providing money for research.

"This does not mean less research into natural food production methods," Mr. Rausser said after dodging the pie slung his way. "These fields are not mutually exclusive."

Research at both Berkeley and the agriculturally oriented Davis campus has long been a key factor in making California the world's leading food production region.

Even though the Berkeley-Novartis deal will provide support for graduate students, dozens of grad students pronounced themselves "outraged" at the pact during their own press conference just after the pact was announced.

"This deal promotes a narrow focus on profit-oriented and controversial biotechnological research," they said in a written statement. "That contrasts with the College of Natural Resources' stated goals of sustainability, protection of the environment and food safety."