Member Event: NFU Campaign “A Seed Act for Farmers, Not Corporations – Stop Bill C-18”

Author: Jenn Kucharczyk

Posted: February 5, 2014

Categories: GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Members

Guest blog post from the National Farmers Union (NFU) including additional information about toolkits and a webinar on February 13th, held in partnership with Food Secure Canada:

A Seed Act for Farmers, Not Corporations – Stop Bill C-18

The National Farmers Union (NFU) would like Canada to adopt a new Seed Act for Farmers which would recognize the inherent rights of farmers – derived from thousands of years of custom and tradition – to save, reuse, select, exchanges and sell seeds. Current and proposed restrictions on farmers’ traditional practices, whether from commercial contracts, identity preservation (IP) systems, or legislation – criminalize these ancient practices and harm farmers, citizens, and society in general.

 

Bill C-18, the “Agricultural Growth Act“, an omnibus agriculture bill was introduced in Parliament last December. By amending the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act and the Seeds Act, Bill C-18 would:

• further restrict farmers’ rights to save, re-use and sell seed,

• increase farmers’ costs,

• reduce farmers’ autonomy and Canadian sovereignty,

• hand multi-national, seed corporations more control over Canada’s seed supply, our farming practices and ultimately, our food.

The amendments to the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act included in Bill C-18 would align Canada with UPOV ’91. UPOV is the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. It was first ratified by several countries in 1968 and then revised in 1978 and 1991. Each revision has transferred more ownership and control of seeds to multi-national seed companies and made it more difficult for farmers to save, reuse and sell seeds. In 1990, Parliament passed Canada’s first Plant Breeders’ Rights Act which conforms to the 1978 UPOV rules.

Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) is a form of Intellectual Property Rights similar to a patent that gives developers of new plant varieties authority to collect royalties and/or restrict their use. Under Canada’s current PBR Act Canadian farmers are able to save seed for replanting as they see fit, whether or not it is a PBR-protected variety, as long as it is not patent-protected. Seed developers are able to collect royalties only at the time of the sale of PBR-protected seed.

Under the amendments proposed in Bill C-18, seed developers would be able to collect “end-point royalties” (EPR) on the whole crop following harvest instead of just on the sale of seed. EPR’s would be deducted from grain sales. Where PBR-protected forage varieties are grown, royalties could be charged on each cut of hay. Although Bill C-18 includes a ‘farmers’ privilege‘ clause, it also enables the government to pass regulations to remove classes of farmers, plant varieties and entire crop kinds from the ‘farmers’ privilege‘ and to restrict, prohibit or put conditions on the use of harvested material.

For more information on Bill C-18 see Bill C-18 Backgrounder: A Corporate Agri-Business Promotion Act and for more information on “farmers’ privilege‘ see Bill C-18 and Farmers’ Privilege What’s the Whole Story. Both factsheets are availableat http://www.nfu.ca/issues/stop-bill-c-18.

Instead of aligning Canada’s seed and plant breeders’ rights laws with the UPOV ’91 regime of plant breeders’ rights, the NFU recommends that Canada develop and implement a Seed Act for Farmers. Such an act would allow farmers to retain customary use of seed and would contribute to a strong, healthy, democratically controlled Canadian food system.

For more information on the NFU’s Seed Act for Farmers see Fundamental Principles of a Farmers Seed Act at http://www.nfu.ca/issues/stop-bill-c-18.

To move ahead with a Seed Act for Farmers, Not Corporations, the NFU first needs your help to Stop Bill C-18.

What you can do:

• Contact your MP and other elected representatives and tell them you do not want Bill C-18.

• Print a copy of and collect signatures on the NFU’s Right to Save Seed petition. Take it to your MP and ask them to present in the House of Commons. The petition is available at http://www.nfu.ca/issues/stop-bill-c-18.

• Join the NFU and/or donate to the NFU’s A Seed Act for Farmers, Not Corporations – Stop Bill C-18 campaign. Details on how to join or donate are available at www.nfu.ca.

In addition the NFU recommends that:

• Canada re-establish and increase funding for public breeding institutions and public researchers and resume plant breeding to the variety level.

• Canada reorient its agricultural laws towards the principles of Food Sovereignty – healthy food, ecological sustainability and democratic control.

For more information on the NFU’s A Seed Act for Farmers, Not Corporations – Stop Bill C-18 campaign:

• Use the NFU’s Stop Bill C-18 Toolkit available at http://www.nfu.ca/issues/stop-bill-c-18.

• Contact Ann Slater, NFU Vice President (Policy) at 519-349-2448 or aslater@quadro.net, Jan Slomp, NFU President at 403-843-2068 or marian.jan@gmail.com or the NFU National Office at 306-652-9465 or nfu@nfu.ca.

• Join the February 13 Webinar hosted by the National Farmers Union in collaboration with Food Secure Canada. Webinar registration is limited. To register for the webinar go to: http://foodsecurecanada.org/content/seed-act-farmers-not-corporations.