New from GRAIN
February 2007
http://www.grain.org/?nfg=470
SEED COMPANIES WANT TO BAN FARM-SAVED SEED
A new report from GRAIN reveals the new lobbying offensive from the
global seed industry to make it a crime for farmers to save seeds for
the next year's planting. This briefing traces the recent discussions
within the seed industry and explores what will happen if a plant
variety right becomes virtually indistinguishable from a patent.
BACKGROUND
Seed companies already have strong legal support from governments. In
many countries, seed laws require farmers to use only certified seed
of government-approved varieties. That seed is often available only
from commercial seed companies.
A rapidly increasing number of governments also grant legal monopoly
rights for commercial seed, by means of industrial patents and
so-called plant variety protection (PVP). Until recently, both seed
patents and PVP existed only in developed countries. But since the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) was created in 1994, all member
governments must provide some form of monopoly rights on seeds. There
is now enormous pressure on developing countries to adopt the
developed country models. Many have been persuaded to join the
international PVP system, managed by UPOV (International Union for
the Protection of New Varieties of Plants). In the past ten years,
UPOV has more than doubled its membership. Most new members are
developing countries.
The UPOV system was originally set up in 1961, in response to many
years of lobbying by the seed industry. What the companies really
wanted was to have industrial patents on seeds. Patents give absolute
rights to control all uses of the seed, both for planting and for
further breeding. But at the time many governments felt that patents
would give industry too much power over farmers. The UPOV PVP was
created as a compromise. From the beginning, it gave seed companies a
monopoly on only the commercial multiplication and the marketing of
seeds. Farmers remained free to save seed from their own harvest to
plant in the following year, and other breeders could freely use any
variety, protected or not, to develop a new one.
During the 1980s, the development of genetic engineering attracted
large transnational companies from the pharmaceuticals and chemical
sectors into plant breeding. With their much greater lobbying power,
they began a new offensive to strengthen monopoly rights on plant
breeding in developed countries. First, they got industrial patents
on plants bred with genetic engineering (GE) and related techniques.
This meant, in practice, that they got the absolute monopoly that
conventional breeders had been refused two decades earlier.
Second, the UPOV PVP rights were radically expanded for all plant
varieties, GE or conventional. Since 1991, the PVP monopoly has
applied not only to seed multiplication but also to the harvest and
sometimes the final product as well. The previously unlimited right
for farmers to save seed for the following year's planting has been
changed into an optional exception. Only if the national government
allows it can farm-saved seed still be used, and a royalty has to be
paid to the seed company even for seeds grown on-farm.
Third, these much stronger monopoly rights are required for
membership in the WTO, as already described. This is the starting
point for the new lobby offensive now being prepared by the global
seed industry. The goal this time is to remove the few remaining
differences between the PVP system and patents, so that companies
will have an absolute monopoly over seeds all over the world,
regardless of which legal system is used, for all crops and all
countries.
THE REAL TARGET - FARM-SAVED SEED
Farm-saved seed will be a primary target of this offensive. At least
two-thirds of the global crop area is currently planted with
farm-saved seed every year. In many developing countries, it
represents 80--90 per cent of all seed used, but even in developed
countries it commonly accounts for a large share (30--60 per cent).
If farmers were legally forced to plant all of this area with
commercial seed, it could easily mean a doubling of seed industry
turnover, that is, an extra US$20 billion annually -- all taken out
of farmers' pockets and delivered to transnational giants such as
DuPont, Bayer, Syngenta, and Monsanto.
Another key industry demand will be to restrict or eliminate the
freedom to use PVP-protected varieties for breeding -- the other
major difference between the UPOV system and patents. The purpose is
simply to block competition. If nobody else is allowed to improve on
a variety until after the term of protection -- 20 years or so -- a
seed company will be able to sell the unimproved variety for a much
longer period, and postpone the cost of new research. The net effect:
increased profits for the PVP owner, higher seed prices and fewer new
varieties for farmers.
The seed industry has every reason to fear competition from
farm-saved seed and more innovative independent breeders. Even
individual farmers can often match or beat the performance of
commercial varieties by simple on-farm selection. With constantly
stronger monopoly rights and increasing consolidation into a few
giant conglomerates, seed companies have produced fewer and fewer
products of value to farmers. The big strides in yield and resistance
improvement were made early in the 20th century, before any monopoly
rights were available on seeds. And those improvements came mainly
from selecting and crossing the very best of the thousands of farmer
varieties which had been developed over centuries, not from any
industry-sponsored research.
The failure of commercial plant breeding has left global agriculture
badly prepared for the challenges of the near future, such as climate
change and the need to wean ourselves off dependence on fossil fuels.
It is now time to start rolling back the monopoly privileges of the
seed industry, not to strengthen them further.
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GRAIN, The end of farm-saved seed? Industry's wish-list for the next
revision of UPOV, GRAIN Briefing, February 2007,
http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=202, available in PDF and HTML.
The summary in PDF is also available on this page. Also currently
available in French, and soon in Spanish.
