The Hindu Business Line : Seeds law needs re-sowing

A Seeds Bill was tabled in Parliament in December 2004 to repeal the Seeds Act of 1966. Almost two years, eight meetings and many public protests later, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture presented its report on the Bill to the Agriculture Ministry. The Committee has suggested several changes to the draft of the new law.

Some recommendations are certainly in order. Among the key ones are the recognition of farmers' "rights" to save, use, exchange, share or sell seed without restriction or registration. In its present form, the Seed Bill prohibits farmers from selling their seed under a brand name and requires the seeds for sale to comply with the quality criteria set for registration of industry seeds.

If some farmers do choose to turn to the market for seeds, then the regulation of seeds prices — an aspect missing in the draft Bill, is as much a responsibility of the government as is regulation of quality and purity. There is a suggestion that a sub-committee be set up to regulate prices and thus keep control over private seed operations.

Self-certification is void

The Committee report adds that private companies producing seeds cannot themselves be the ones certifying the quality of their own product. Therefore, it recommends that self-certification be done away with. Speedier compensation to farmers suffering the consequences of duff or fake seed is another element the Committee has suggested be incorporated into the new law.

Clipping powers given by the Bill to seed inspectors to search and seize without warrant is a necessary check against abuse of power. And among other things, the Committee recommends more representation of farmers in the proposed Central Seed Committee. However, the underlying assumptions of the report warrant more discussion, three of which are highlighted below.

"QUALITY"

The Committee clearly supports the Government's view that there is a need to provide "good quality seeds to (sic) the Indian farmer... " This is precisely what needs to be changed. For eons, farmers have been saving and sowing seeds from their own farms, and would rather not rely on any external source.

Therefore, the farmers need only be supported to become self-reliant for seeds so as to ensure the quality of the seed they choose as most appropriate in their context culturally and ecologically. That would truly mean more freedom for the farmer.

Also, this would ensure a quality of life, which no government, leave alone a private enterprise, has been able to guarantee to small farmers. The Committee rightly acknowledges the "growing dependency" of farmers on the private seed market, but recommends nothing to reverse that trend. The "best planting material anywhere in the world available to Indian farmers... " is grown by the Indian farmers themselves, it need not be sourced from a foreign land or a private laboratory.

"PROTECTION"

One notes with concern the emphasis the Committee puts on making the Indian PVP (Plant Variety Protection) law fully operative before bringing forth the new seeds law. Let it be understood that like any other PVP law in the world, the Indian version too is basically meant to protect plant breeders not small farmers or for crop conservation.

Both the title and the retro-fitted "Farmer's Rights" chapter in the PVP law have led many to believe that this is the only legal instrument that can help actualise the rights of farmers.

A PVP law, no matter how "good" it appears, only privatises planting material. Traditional farming knowledge needs to be protected from IPRs and not by IPRs. In any case, even if a group of farmers does toil to get a "farmer's variety" PVP certificate, how are counter claims on the same variety from other farmers going to be dealt with? This only shows the inappropriateness of the PVP/IPR system in the Indian context. Also more PVP certificates being issued only means more breeders having control over plants and seedling material which hitherto was freely available to the farmers.

Experiences of other countries with PVP also need to be considered; PVP has meant less freedom for farmers to save and use PVP-protected seeds. There is also cause to believe that there will be reduced flow of germplasm from the private to the public sector. Anyway,the debate now is whether the PVP system has outlived its purpose in the light of more patent-like rights and more patents themselves.

"PATRIMONY"

Another discomfiture is from the rather emphatic Committee recommendation to make clear and known to all that "patrimony varieties" will belong to the government. The term "patrimony" means heritage, an inheritance from ancestors or an endowment from a (fore) father. International peasant movement Via Campesina has an ongoing global campaign on the Patrimony of Seeds at the Service of Mankind. It believes that seeds are not tradable commodities but for peasants to share with a responsibility to nurture.

Patrimony vis-à-vis natural genetic resources, as interpreted by traditional farmers, explains their relationship with their seeds. Patrimony varieties ought then to first belong to farmers. Lawyers often raise the State Sovereignty issue, as laid down in the global environmental agreement - Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). But the CBD principle does not make the state the owner of the living resources within it, but only a holder of them in trust on behalf of its communities. If "improved" varieties, developed by private plant breeders, are owned by companies and patrimony varieties, which comprise the heritage of farmers, are owned by the state, then farmers no longer belong to their seeds and vice-versa.

Change may be the need of the hour but not only in the letter of law.

Needed is a real re-think of the kind of agriculture we want to support. By consciously choosing the food we eat and being aware from where we buy it, we may help keep alive not only a farm seed but with it a whole way of life.

(The author is with GRAIN, which has been working on food and farming issues.)

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