October 15, 2002
On the eve of World Food Day on Wednesday, an international charity is urging world leaders to take measures to protect the livelihoods of the world's farmers at a key meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva next month. ActionAid--a British-based organization working to alleviate poverty in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean--is launching an international campaign Wednesday to pressure nations attending discussions at the WTO's Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Council meeting on November 25 to safeguard farmers' right to seeds.
"We are putting pressure on the negotiators to take into consideration farmers' rights to save, use, or exchange seeds," said ActionAid campaigner Alex Wijeratna. "We are looking for an explicit recognition at the Geneva meeting guaranteeing a farmer's right to do so."
Farmers' seed rights, according to ActionAid, have become increasingly jeopardized by the global expansion of intellectual property rights, which are often characterized by the use of patents, copyrights, or trademarks, and enforced by international conventions such as TRIPs. While farmers have traditionally saved the seeds from their crops for replanting the following season, a 1996 TRIPs agreement stipulates that a farmer who wishes to grow a particular variety of patented crop has to purchase the seeds for sowing and then buy seeds again for another planting.
"This (rule) is a violation of a farmer's right," said Wijeratna. "Farmers have been using and re-using seeds for 12,000 years."
Farmers growing patented crops are also expected to sign contracts and pay royalties, said ActionAid, which "restricts their rights and may jeopardize their livelihoods."
At least 1,000 strains of food crops such as rice, wheat, sorghum, maize, and soya have now been patented by leading companies, according to ActionAid. About 70 percent of the patents are owned by six top multi-national companies (MNCs) such as Monsanto, DuPont and Aventis. In countries such as the United States and Canada, there have been some 100 recent instances of MNCs taking farmers to court for using patented seeds. Last month, Canada's Federal Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that a Canadian farmer had violated a patent held by Monsanto on a variety of herbicide-resistant canola.
The farmer, Percy Schmeiser--who claims that the seeds might have accidentally blown into his field from a passing truck or contaminated his crop through pollination--was ordered to pay US$12,000 in damages and cover Monsanto's court costs of $96,470.
By encouraging discussion at the TRIPs meeting, the ActionAid campaign is working to prevent similar eventualities in developing countries. "We are pressing for strong legal systems in developing nations to prevent such cases," said Wijeratna.
Last week, Gene Campaign, a New Delhi-based organization working for farmers' interests in India, filed a case in the Delhi High Court to block the Indian government's decision to join the Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), an intergovernmental organization which seeks to give exclusive property rights to breeders of new plant varieties. The group argued in court that the government's decision, taken in May, to join the UPOV would lead to farmers losing their rights over the seeds of traditionally grown crops. The court has directed the Indian government to respond to the charges.
ActionAid hopes its campaign--which urges the public to write letters to their government in support of farmers' rights--would mould opinion at next month's TRIPs meeting, which is expected to be attended by key decision makers from the United States, the European Union, Canada and Japan.
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