AGRI Committee Discussion

Yesterday the AGRI (Agriculture and Rural Development) committee of the EU Parliament held a meeting and announced their assuming responsibility for the new EU seed legislation. Together with this announcement was a presentation by the EU Commission on their entire package of legislation, of which the seed law is a part. After a very long presentation, there were some comments from the other Parliamentarians who were given 3 minutes each to give comments on a very complex topic. They discussed it for an hour and a half, and the file is 407Mb, which you can download and watch here.

Lots of Problems!

Many of the problems of the legislation were visible in the discussion.  The first is complexity, and using this to create confusion and distract from the real issues.  If you want to see confusion already intentionally created, have a look at the Google search result for criminalized seeds.  While you’re at it, have a look at some of the websites that are sources of that confusion, and think about their connections with the larger seed companies.

After creating all that confusion, they gave others participating in that meeting 3 minutes each to respond.  There were a couple of good responses too.

The EU Commission is just playing the same game.  Making the comparison with horse meat.  What does seed purity have to do with horse meat?  Nothing, but it’s on the minds of the European public, and so it’s a good way to provoke an emotional response.  Then comes everything they are doing for the benefit for micro-enterprises, reducing red tape and preserving old varieties.

The reality is there’s nothing in their presentation of the plant reproductive material (PRM) that has any value for consumer safety.  The most helpful thing they could do for micro-enterprises and preserving old varieties would be to completely scrap the legislation.

The entire purpose of the legislation is to create a marketing advantage for larger seed companies, then export that advantage via trade agreements the EU has with other countries.  It doesn’t matter if there are a few small exceptions for older varieties or micro-enterprises, the entire piece of legislation is flawed.  Even if these exceptions are written into the legislation, ‘delegated acts’ mean large parts of the legislation could be completely rewritten later, and local governments could impose new restrictions.  If any sort of official system of registration exists, it will always be tempting for governments to create an advantage for those varieties.

If you buy a car or a house, do you expect them to all be distinct, uniform and stable (DUS)?  EU seed marketing is virtually the only economic sector, anywhere in the world, that has pre-marketing controls requiring consumers be given as restricted a choice as possible.

Red Tape

Supposedly the purpose of this regulation is to reduce red tape.  There are likely hundreds or even thousands of people working full time across Europe administering the current seed laws.  These are very talented and skilled people, who have something very valuable to offer to the people of Europe.  Why not let them work on biodiversity or local agriculture projects?

EU Seed Law: English Language Petition

Please sign the new English language petition opposing the new EU seed law!

The petition is now available in other languages, but please only sign one copy!  The signature lists will be combined, and duplicate signatures will be removed.

More languages are on the way…

GERMAN

FRENCH

DANISH

SLOVENIAN

CZECH

BULGARIAN  (Requires Cyrillic installed in browser)

GREEK   (Requires Greek characters installed in browser)

CROATION

PORTUGUESE

HUNGARIAN

ITALIAN

POLISH

DUTCH

ROMANIAN

LATVIAN

 

PVP in Africa

Bifurcated Carrots joins more than 80 other organizations around the world in opposing the new proposed PVP plant protection protocol in the SADC (Southern African Development Community).  This would spell disaster for small farmers and food security in the region.

3 April 2013
Civil society organisations from the SADC region, and around the world have condemned the SADC draft Protocol for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (Plant Breeders’ Rights) as spelling disaster for small farmers and food security in the region. These groups, representing millions of farmers in Africa and around the world have submitted their concerns to the SADC Secretariat. They are calling for the rejection of the Protocol and urgent consultations with farmers, farmer movements and civil society before it’s too late.

According to the groups, the Protocol is inflexible, restrictive and imposes a “one-size-fits-all” plant variety protection (PVP) system on all SADC countries irrespective of the nature of agricultural systems, social and economic development. It is modelled after the 1991 International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 1991), an instrument which was developed by industrialized countries to address their own needs. UPOV 1991 grants extremely strong intellectual property right protection to plant breeders, and disallows farmers from continuing their customary practices of freely using, exchanging and selling farm-saved seeds.

According to Moses Shaha, regional chairman for the East and Southern African small-scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF): “The proposed legislation gives big-business breeders significant rights, but in doing so, disregards and marginalizes small farmers and their plant varieties. It fails to recognize that small-scale farmers and their customary practices of freely exchanging and re-using seed for multiple purposes, constitute the backbone of SADC’s agricultural farming systems.”

About half of SADC members are Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and are not currently under any international obligation to put in place any such PVP system. Indeed, the majority of SADC members have limited or no experience with PVP systems, or the impact these systems will have on food security, farmers, farming systems and livelihoods in the region.

According to Elizabeth Mpofu, a small farmer from Zimbabwe: “Small farmers in Africa play a vital role in keeping food costs down, and contribute immensely to the development of locally appropriate and adapted seeds, and to the diversity of crops. Any PVP system that fails to support and promote these farmer managed systems, and instead adversely impacts on them, is clearly a recipe for disaster for the region’s farmers.”

Like UPOV 1991, the Protocol is severely lacking in flexibilities to allow vulnerable states to address their particular socio-economic problems. The Protocol imposes a “one grant system” whereby the SADC Plant Breeders’ Rights Office will have the full authority to grant and administer breeders’ rights on behalf of all SADC members.

“This top-down approach effectively undermines the rights of SADC member states to take any decision related to the protected plant varieties; decisions that are at the very core of national socio-economic development and poverty reduction strategies. The Protocol also does not contain concrete measures to prevent misappropriation of plant genetic resources and does not live up to international commitments of the majority of SADC members to promote the sustainable use of plant genetic resources and plant breeding with the participation of farmers” pointed out Andrew Mushita, of the Community Trust for Development and Technology, in Zimbabwe.

“The whole rationale and underlying premise for the Protocol is unknown to us because we, as civil society, have been locked out of the process. What specific consultations have taken place, and with whom? What data and impact assessments have guided the development of the Protocol?” asks Mariam Mayet, of the African Centre for Biosafety.