Farmers' Rights in India
Plant Genetic Resources Newsletter 104 reviewed the proceedings of a meeting in Madras in 1994 on Farmers' Rights and Plant Breeders' Rights in India. This was an important meeting and a great credit to the organizers at the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation.
The review notes that "no individual farmer will ever really be rewarded for the use of germplasm collected from his or her field." The problems of a reward system were discussed at the 1994 meeting. It was argued that general rewards to farming communities for their past contributions to genetic resources could be possible. However, the meeting did not dismiss the idea of rewarding individual farmers for their efforts in crop improvement; it was the difficulty of tracing already-collected samples back to the farm of origin that made individual rewards impractical.
In future it will certainly be possible to reward individual farmers for their varieties. In clonally propagated crops including banana, roots and tubers and most fruits and nuts landraces maintained by farmers are already well within the UPOV conditions for uniformity and stability. Distinct new varieties can arise during occasional cycles of sexual reproduction in these normally clonally propagated crops. For example, in avocado all the leading cultivars, including classics like Hass and Fuerte, originated from chance seedlings and were recognized as new, distinct and better varieties by private individuals. Also, in crops normally propagated by seed, novelties can and do constantly occur and may be recognized as useful and maintained by traditional farmers.
Just as in countries subscribing to the UPOV regulations, such knowledge and skill can (and I argue should) be rewarded if the variety turns out to be of wider use, perhaps to plant breeders, and certainly if used in other countries. Note that it is the individual farmer, and not the 'community', who selects and decides to propagate these novelties, and it is the individual farmer that could be rewarded. A mechanism to reward individual farmers could be the greatest possible stimulus to on-farm conservation and varietal improvement by farmers. There is no insurmountable legal or practical problem in using the concept of Farmers' Rights to reward individuals. The intended parallel with Plant Breeders' Rights would be close.
In January 1996 there was a follow-up to the 1994 meeting, also at the Swaminathan Foundation in Madras, to allow further discussion of the Indian intention of adopting joint or parallel legislation for PBR and Farmers' Rights. This was highly significant, as it would result in pioneer national legislation on Farmers' Rights, in a country with a massive plant breeding capacity, but also a massive number of very poor farmers. In both meetings, Indians - including the Indian Seed Trade representatives, and public-sector breeders and genetic resource scientists - worked hard to make legislation on both Farmers' Rights and PBR possible.
Discussions during the meeting threw a light on the different interests in Farmers' Rights for developing countries such as India, and for developed countries (I take the U.S. as an example: the argument also applies to other major agricultural exporters of the developed world). There now seem to be at least three issues over Farmers' Rights where the interests of developed and developing countries conflict: germplasm access, varietal ownership and the links between PBR and grain exports.
Developed countries are usually extremely poor in native genetic resources of crops, and therefore highly dependent on access to genetic resources from Third World countries. A global concept of 'Farmers Rights' has been used to justify a 'supra-national' approach to maintain access to genetic resources, otherwise known as a 'multilateral system'. This is obviously of greatest advantage to farmers in countries poor in their own genetic resources, such as the USA. In contrast, a strong national position on implementing Farmers' Rights within India would most benefit Indian farmers.
In particular, individual 'farmer-ownership' of the good varieties of crops in India conflicts with the interests of developed countries because it could restrict the pool of varieties freely available internationally (tine 'global commons/common heritage', of vital importance for the agriculture of developed countries). In future what is left unclaimed by individual farmers may not be very useful: farmers know good varieties when they see them. And for farmer-owned varieties, in place of the present system of access without cost, payments would be in order for varietal use, as under UPOV.
When Farmers' Rights was conceived, there was a deliberate parallel between Farmers' Rights and Plant Breeders' Rights. Accept the concept of Farmers' Rights - as most countries seem to have done - and PBR becomes politically respectable, and can be more readily introduced into national legislation in developing countries. Why should the introduction of PBR in, for example, India conflict with the agricultural interest of developed countries such as the USA? Because PBR is the single most practicable measure that could best boost crop production in many developing countries. This would reduce their need for imports and also make them new players in the global crop export market, where competition is already intense. This argument has extra force in India, with a very large and high-quality public-sector plant breeding capacity and the recent ability to export grain. India moved from food deficit with "a heavy reliance on food aid supplied principally by the United States" to a food surplus, despite a doubling of population from the 1960s to late 1980s (Times of India, 8 June 1994). If even part of this capacity were to be stimulated, through both the introduction of PBR and privatization of the seed industry, India will be a significant competitor to developed countries in global grain markets.
This conflict of interests over Farmers' Rights drew into the 1996 Madras meeting a significant transnational NGO, RAFI, the international arm of the Rural Advancement Fund, an organization founded in 1937 to represent the interests of US farmers. As could be predicted by the three areas of conflict outlined above, RAFI argued for the option that would best benefit US farmers: free access to germplasm; no direct ownership of varieties by Indian farmers; and no introduction of PER in India.
The hallmark of NGOs such as RAFI has always been attacks on multinational seed companies, hence the term 'Seed Wars' activists. Until the Madras meeting there remained one puzzle about the motives of the 'Seed Wars' NGOs: Why should a North American NGO, apparently representing the interests of US farmers, wish to attack US based multinational seed companies?
The global obsession with the evils of transnational seed companies has obscured the fact that such companies routinely transfer commercial technology to developing countries. Often this technology is developed by the public sector for example, by US universities - paid for by taxpayers' money. The danger to US farming of this seed export has been recognized for many years, for example: "it should be noted, however, that the interests of the US breeding material export industry are not always the same as those of US production agriculture. Increased export of seed to specific markets, for example, of soybean seed to Brazil, will, in turn, affect export opportunities for US products such as soybeans." (B.E. Caldwell, ed. 1989. Intellectual Property Rights Associated with Plants. ASA Special Publication No, 52. CSSA Workshop, Anaheim, CA, Feb. 1989, p. 182).
The export of seed and know-how by transnational companies is for the narrow advantage of the company and cannot be prevented under US law, no matter how damaging to US exports. This transfer of subsidized technology may greatly benefit crop production in developing countries, at the cost of seriously damaging US crop exports, and, in turn, US farmers. RAFI attacks on multinational seed companies could be intended to benefit US farmers by preventing the transfer of US technology.
The 'Seed Wars' NGOs - exemplified by RAFI at the Madras meeting - have therefore adopted a consistent and rational position in the debate over Farmers' Rights. This position benefits farmers in their own countries. RAFI lobbies internationally in favour of the two most important issues for U.S. agriculture:
· free access to genetic resources (and absolutely no farmer ownership of varieties). This is to ensure germplasm for plant breeding in countries such as the US, Canada, Australia, and much of the EU which are highly dependent on genetic resources from developing countries.
· no PER in developing countries (and certainly no transnational companies transferring national agricultural technology in the form of seed to emerging competitors). This limits Third World crop production and ensures export markets for the massive and highly subsidised crop production in developed countries (US$20 billion a year grain exports from North America).
From a Third-World viewpoint, this may not seem an attractive agenda, as it could, and probably will, damage the interests of the predominantly poor farmers in developing countries.
Even if the above arguments are only partly correct, we can expect a reduction in support for Farmers' Rights by the 'Seed Wars' NGOs as conflicts to their interests emerge. We can also predict that such NGOs will now promote 'Indigenous Rights' or 'Community Rights': such 'rights' very specifically deny any possibility of individual ownership of any genetic resources.
David Wood
Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India
