By Jan Slomp
On Dec. 9, 2013, Omnibus Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act went to Parliament for first reading.
Passing Bill C-18 would make Canada compliant with the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV ’91), a much more restrictive form of Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) than we currently have.
The second part of the act will prepare Canada’s regulatory regime for fast track approval of feed or food additives, drugs or other inventions that are already approved in jurisdictions we trade with.
Bill C-18 also opens the door for farmers to tap into multi-year advance payments secured by crops in storage or grown in the future.
After a groundswell of farmer-led opposition to adopting UPOV ’91 in 2005, the federal Liberal government let it quietly die, as it became clear farmers would be drastically restricted in their ability to save, reuse, exchange and sell seed.
The Canadian public clearly demanded that genetic resources remain a public good.
Before reintroducing UPOV ’91 through Bill C-18, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has been actively spreading the myth and managing to convince many farm organizations and commodity groups that saving seed is enshrined in this bill.
It’s obvious UPOV ’91 gives plant breeders significantly more “rights” and tools for royalty collection, while farmers’ seed-saving right is reduced to “privilege.”
A closer look at the text of Bill C-18 reveals that it does talk about a farmer’s ability to save seed. When storing that saved seed, however, the farmer needs the permission of the holder of the PBR, which may or may not be given.
Of course, the breeder also has the right to charge royalties.
In fact, Bill C-18 also empowers government to remove, restrict or limit the farmer’s seed-saving privilege by passing regulations – a process that can happen quickly and without public debate.
UPOV ’91 has many provisions for royalty collection after a crop has been harvested, when seed is cleaned in seed cleaning plants or when a crop is moved off the farm for sale at elevators and other points of transaction – in the year the crop was harvested or any year after that.
Canada should reject UPOV ’91 and defeat Bill C-18.
Instead, we should reinforce our public plant-breeding programs. With the continued allocation of farmer check-off dollars, there will be ample funding for essential variety development.
There is absolutely no need to grant trans-national plant breeders more tools to extract excessive funds from farmers.
Adopting UPOV ’91 may result in some genetic improvements of crops, but at significantly higher costs than a public-breeding system – which benefits the whole Canadian economy.
UPOV ’91 would result in significantly higher costs for farmers and growth in profits for Bayer, Monsanto, Dow and Syngenta and other seed and chemical companies headquartered outside of our country.
Jan Slomp is president of the National Farmers Union. He holistically manages a 65-cow dairy farm near Rimbey, Alberta.
