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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] CANADA: Monsanto Victory Plants Seed of Privatisation
  • Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 06:53:22 -0700

CANADA: Monsanto Victory Plants Seed of Privatisation

Stephen Leahy
Inter Press Service

BROOKLIN, Canada, Oct 5 (IPS) - Canadian farmers'
traditional right to save seeds is being threatened by
proposals to collect royalties on virtually all such
seeds following agribusiness giant Monsanto's victory
over grower Percy Schmeiser.

A recent review of Canada's entire production and
regulatory system for the seeds farmers plant looked at
ways to collect payments (royalties) on seeds the
growers save from their own crops, to link crop
insurance to the use of purchased certified seeds and
to increase intellectual property protection for seed
companies.

"It's a fundamental shift in agriculture to the
privatisation of seeds," says Terry Pugh, executive
secretary of Canada's National Farmer's Union (NFU).
"There are no benefits (in this) for farmers."

Formally known as the Seed Sector Review, Pugh
described the process as an industry-driven
restructuring of Canada's seed production system.
Companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Dupont,
which dominate Canada's seed industry, are pushing for
"deregulation" and increased profitability, he added in
an interview.

The essence of the review is to turn growers into
consumers of seed from producers of seed. "Farmers
can't believe this is happening," added Pugh.

Various regulations in Canada's laws have long
protected farmers from unscrupulous seed sellers by
requiring that new varieties of wheat and other grains
pass a merit test. Before they could be sold to farmers
their makers had to prove they offered better yields,
improved disease resistance or agronomic performance.

Until the 1990s most of the research into new seed
varieties was done either by government researchers or
publicly funded university plant breeders. To encourage
corporate seed research, Canada created the Plant
Breeders Rights Act (PBR) in 1990.

Under the PBR when farmers bought certified (high
quality) seed from a company they could save seed from
their crop for their own use the following year but
could not sell it to anyone else. This seed saving for
a farmer's own use could continue indefinitely but
growers were technically prohibited from selling it.

In fact, after several years most farmers felt free to
sell what they felt had become "common" seed. And seed
companies did not particularly object as long as
farmers did not try and pass off what they felt was
lower-quality or impure seed as one of their registered
varieties.

That is all about to change as Canada's federal
agricultural department appears more interested in
protecting the profits of seed companies than farmers,
says Paul Beingessner, a third-generation grain and
livestock farmer near Truax in the province of
Saskatchewan.

"There's lots of seed trading among farmers here. We
rarely buy certified seed for cereals. It's rarely
better seed and just not necessary," Beingessner said
in an interview.

If Saskatchewan spring wheat growers had to buy
certified seed each year, it would increase their costs
by an average of 1,400 Canadian dollars (1,110 U.S.
dollars) per farm, he calculates. He estimates that
five percent of all wheat and barley growers in the
province, the heart of Canada's "bread basket," buy new
seed.

The proposals in the Seed Sector Review are an attempt
to force more farmers to buy certified seed from the
seed companies, says Beingessner. "It's a money grab,
pure and simple."

The royalty provisions would also mean that farmers
would one day have to pay royalties on traded seed.

Bill Leask, executive director of the Canadian Seed
Trade Association, one of four groups that initiated
the review, would hardly use those words but feels
those who bring new varieties to market should be
rewarded for their efforts.

"It costs between one and two million dollars to create
a new variety of seed," Leask said in an interview. The
CSTA says it has 577 million dollars in sales annually.

While he acknowledges that new varieties are only
possible because of the breeding efforts of farmers
over the past millennia, Leask argues "today's seeds
are nothing like they were then, and are long ways from
the seeds of 50 years ago."

The review's final recommendations will soon be put
before the government but they do not include a royalty
provision for saved seeds, Leask says. "The NFU is
completely wrong about this. There are no royalty
provisions in Canada."

However, the seed industry does think royalties have
merit and would like to look at such a proposal in the
future, he adds.

Although the Seed Sector Review began in 2003, it is
consistent with a push for corporate control of seed,
best illustrated in Monsanto's May 2004 Supreme Court
victory over Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser, both
Pugh and Beingessner believe.

Monsanto alleged that Schmeiser illegally saved its
genetically engineered "Roundup Ready" canola (oilseed
rape) in 1997, after the firm obtained plants from his
farm the following year that contained its patented
genetics.

Throughout six years of litigation, Schmeiser
steadfastly maintained his fields were contaminated by
pollen from a neighbour's Roundup Ready canola fields
and by seeds that blew off trucks on their way to a
nearby processing plant.

Despite widespread evidence of contamination on many
other farms, the Supreme Court determined the farmer
infringed on Monsanto's legal rights under Canada's
Patent Act by 'using' the company's patented gene when
he harvested and sold his crop.

That decision remains highly controversial.

Recently Rene Van Acker, a University of Manitoba
agricultural expert, wrote to tell the Supreme Court
that seed samples from Schmeiser's contested 1997 crop
that he tested were not 95-98 per cent Roundup Ready
canola, as Monsanto claimed. Rather, the amount of
Roundup Ready canola in the crop varied between three
to 67 percent, depending on the sample tested.

Other research has shown that Roundup Ready canola has
spread widely, and now shows up in ditches, schoolyards
and city lots. Even the purest, certified non-
genetically engineered canola now contains up to 4.9
per cent Roundup Ready content, Van Acker writes.

Moreover, the researcher says he cannot find any
documents that substantiate Monsanto's claim that
Schmeiser's crop was 95 percent contaminated.

At the heart of the debate over ownership of seeds is
the principle of a farmer's right to save seeds. The
Schmeiser case and the recommendations of the Seed
Sector Review are completely contradictory to the
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, which
came into force this summer, says Pat Mooney of the ETC
Group, a Canadian non-governmental organisation (NGO)
that was heavily involved in the treaty negotiations.

"The treaty is very strong on farmer seed saving.
Canada was the first country to ratify the treaty,"
Mooney told IPS.

In Leask's view the treaty is all about protecting the
rights of indigenous people in developing countries,
who have saved seeds for centuries. In Canada there is
no legal right of farmers to save seed, he argues.

The review recommends the government acknowledge
farmers' "privilege" to save seed for their own
holdings, an approach Leask supports. "I don't think
farmers ought to have a legal right to save seeds," he
adds.

http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=25740






  • [Livingontheland] CANADA: Monsanto Victory Plants Seed of Privatisation, Tradingpost, 11/15/2004

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