GRAIN (November 2014): Trade deals criminalize farmers' seeds
News
UPOV bodies – the Council (48th session), the Consultative Committee (88th session), the Administrative and Legal Committee (70th session), and the Administrative and Legal Committee Advisory Group (CAJ-AG) – met in Geneva from 13th to 17th October 2014. Below are highlights of the main discussions and outcomes.
UPOV Council (48th Session)
The UPOV Council, the highest decision making body in UPOV met on 16th October.
Appointment of the Secretary General of UPOV
The multinational seed industry is pressing for more international harmonization of the plant breeders’ rights protection system that will intensify corporate control.
Unlike most intergovernmental organisations that allow access to its meeting documents and proceedings, UPOV restricts access to meeting documents of the Consultative Council, to its member states. Thus with the aim to enhance transparency in UPOV matters, APBREBES has from time to time been making requests under various Freedom of Information Acts. The latest request has facilitated access to restricted UPOV documents concerning the 88th session of the Consultative Council meeting that was held on 15th October 2014.
In a press release dated 3 November 2014, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) appealed to Member States of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) to postpone the Diplomatic Conference (scheduled to take place in August 2015 in Tanzania) that will formally adopt the much criticized draft ARIPO Protocol on PVP, modelled on UPOV 1991.
On October 30, 2014, the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in Ghana has called on the Mahama Administration to withdraw, what it called “the disgraceful Plant Breeders Bill (PBB) submitted to Parliament by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice”.
In a motion tabled before the United Kingdom Parliament on 4 November 2014, MPs call on the Government, to support community-controlled initiatives to assist farmers to access sustainable, affordable and productive seed varieties instead of initiatives that increase corporate control of seed markets.
In its media release (7th October 2014), the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) expressed deep concerns over the acquisitions by multinational seed companies of large parts of SeedCo, one of Africa’s largest home-grown seed companies, operating in 15 countries across the continent with significant market shares in Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Abstract: Intellectual property rights, mostly in the form of patents and plant variety protection, have increasingly become an integral part of plant improvement efforts. With the advent of the TRIPS Agreement and the dominant interpretative implementation of its minimum standards, actors who use, conserve and improve agricultural biodiversity are faced with a strong property rights paradigm, which has been thoroughly criticised in the doctrine. However, these critics have not created the advocated regulatory shift.
A New Report published by a group of international NGOs presents evidence that stronger plant variety protection based on the 1991 Act of the Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 1991) threatens the Right to Food.
Developed countries regularly put pressure on developing countries to introduce stringent plant variety protection (PVP) regimes modeled on UPOV 1991, without duly considering the consequences on the enjoyment of human rights of vulnerable groups such as small-scale farmers and in particular women.