WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (IPS) - Australian seed corporations, aided by public research institutes and the Canberra government, are pirating the indigenous knowledge of farming communities and international research institutes around the world, say rural advocacy organisations.

The corporations, with government support, are making dozens of illegal patent claims on farmer-bred plant varieties from Brazil to India, says Pat Mooney, director of the Canadian-based Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI).

''Several dozen plant patent claims listed by the Australian government are a clear rip-off of the genius of others,'' he maintains. ''In most of these cases, the Australians appear to have done nothing more than select and multiply somebody else's seed and then slap a plant patent monopoly on them.''

The Syrian-based International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) is also guilty, says Mooney. ''ICARDA has fundamentally misinterpreted its authority with respect to crop germplasm it holds in trust on behalf of the United Nations.''

In a letter to Mooney, Adel El-Beltagy, executive director of ICARDA, admitted that the centre had allowed a number of Australian institutes to apply for a form of plant patent, known as Plant Breeder's Rights on varieties the centre holds under a trusteeship agreement with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The trust agreement was signed in 1994 and specifically prohibits ICARDA and its sister centres from allowing any form of intellectual property claim on the crop germplasm. Yet, in 1995, ICARDA signed agreements with Australian institutes and agribusinesses making it possible for them to claim monopoly control over the plant and seed varieties, he says.

''It's a clear breach of the trust agreement,'' Edward Hammond, a researcher with the Canadian organisation told IPS. ''We hope it was done out of ignorance or poor judgement and not out of malice.'' ICARDA says it is investigating the situation.

In response, the World Bank-based Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, a worldwide network of 16 research centres, has called for a moratorium on the granting of intellectual property rights of germplasm held in their collections. ICARDA is one of the institutes of the Consultative Group - which holds the world's largest international collection of plant genetic resources. The Group's centres routinely distribute germplasm to plant breeders under the agreement that the recipient not apply for patent rights on the material.

''The Consultative Group is deeply committed to the conservation, sustainable use, and stewardship of genetic resources,'' said Ismail Serageldin, chairman of the group. ''Calling for this moratorium is the strongest signal the Group can send governments to ensure that these issues be resolved and the materials in the Group collections remain in the public domain.''

The moratorium will provide governments with the time to carefully consider and resolve issues related to the ''in-trust collections,'' said Geoffrey Hawtin, director general of the Rome- based International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, one of the Consultative Group's institutes. The status of plant genetic resources is currently being negotiated by the intergovernmental FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

The controversy began in early December at a UN meeting in Rome when RAFI first received reports that two Australian seed corporations, Agriculture Western Australia and the Centre for Legumes of Mediterranean Agriculture, had applied for intellectual property monopolies on two strains of chickpeas originally from farmers in India and Iran. The varieties had been borrowed from an internationally-funded research centre in Hyderabad, India.

''The Aussie agencies are acting like kleptomaniacs,'' said Neth Dano of the Manila-based Southeast Asian Regional Institute for Community Education. ''Who gave them the right to pirate and patent the genius of farmers from Asia to Africa? Farmers do the work, but the Australian agencies get the royalties.''

Other non-governmental organisations in Asia had similar reactions. ''Farmers' organisations and governments in South Asia are incensed, said Farhad Mashar of the Bangladesh-based farmer network UBINIG. ''They want an apology and they want to make sure it doesn't happen again.''

When the Indian research centre charged the two corporations of violating a signed agreement, the companies were forced to drop their claims. But the corporations would have never been able to apply for the patents if the Australian government had been doing its job, says RAFI.

While the Australian agencies admitted that they were not the original breeders of the two strains, they went ahead and applied for patents on the seeds with the Australian government. Curiously, both corporations have acknowledged that the Australian government will not process a patent if the applicants are neither the original breeders, nor have the permission of the original breeders.

''At all times, Australia's patent office has acted correctly and has not, and would, not process any application without the original breeders's consent,'' says John Hamblin, director of the Australian corporation Centre for Legumes.

But seeing the Australian government was considering the patents, proves that they would have allowed this bio-piracy, RAFI's Hammond told IPS. ''This is hardly the end...far from an aberration, it seems that several Australian states and institutes feel they have carte blanche to pirate other peoples' knowledge and seeds.''

The Victorian State Institute for Drylands Agriculture, for example, granted exclusive licenses for three Middle Eastern and Mediterranean lentils, he says. While Victoria has no legal authority to do this, each of the varieties had been given to the institute by ICARDA.

''Sadly,'' said Mooney, ''the Lentil Company bought what they were told was the right to sell the seeds in Australia and abroad. The licenses they won mean nothing at all - they have no rights.''

Bill Hankin, president of Australia's Heritage Seed Curators Association agrees. ''The Lentil Company is a handful of hard- working farmers trying to make a living. Its far from their fault.''

There are numerous other instances where Australian state and private institutes have laid claim to other people's work, says Hankin. Pearl millet from Zambia, clovers from North Africa, Italy, Greece and Turkey, and other plants from Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, Cuba, Mexico, Morocco, and Poland are all under claim, he says.

''In every case, it looks like state agencies and private companies are claiming monopoly rights as the so-called ''inventors'' of these varieties. It's quite obvious that a government investigation is needed into the operations of the Australian patent office,'' he adds.

Third World farmer organisations are calling on the United Nations and the Consultative Group to act against these violations.

''If the Australians won't act responsibly,'' says Dano of the South East Asian Regional Institute, ''poor countries don't have the capacity to police the world's patent offices to protect their farmers.

''We need to strengthen the multilateral system to make sure that countries aren't ripped off by dishonest corporations and industrialised countries.''