Role of Agricultural Intermediaries

A number of state agencies and non-governmental organisations have come forward to facilitate farmers/breeders to register their crop varieties and obtain plant variety certifi cates. But can these agencies bring forth a change in the mindset of the small farmers and seed savers’ groups who view the current intellectual property regime with scepticism and continue to keep away from it?

Shalini Bhutani (shalinibhutani@hotmail.com) is a legal researcher and policy analyst based in Delhi.

Intermediaries are known to be persons or organisations that act as a link between the supplier and the end user. They are a third party in the exchange. The intermediaries ordinarily associated with India’s agriculture are those that bring farmers’ produce to the marketplace. These typically include commission agents, millers, wholesalers and retailers at different stages of the supply chain.

Another parallel supply chain has been established in Indian agriculture through an intellectual property (IP) law—a knowledge supply chain. This is under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Act, 2001. The act grants IP protection in the form of plant variety certificates (PVC) to farmers/breeders. To be able to grant this IP protection, it first needs to bring the seed know-how onto its record books, in this case the official register of varieties maintained at New Delhi. It also requires the farmer to deposit in the National Gene Bank a sample of the seed or parental line seeds. This entire process supplies farmers’ seed knowledge and physical planting material from India’s farms previously not always accessible to the official system. To enable the process, a different set of intermediaries has come into play.

The implementation of the act began in 2003 with the PPV&FR rules issued by the Ministry of Agriculture. Following which, the PPV&FR Authority was set up in Delhi in 2005. The body began to receive applications for plant variety protection (PVP) in 2007. Since the screening involves a two-year process, the first registrations of plant varieties under this law began in 2009. Since then, several hundred farmers’ varieties (FV) have also either been granted PVCs, or are being tested for the grant of such IP protection. But this would not have happened sans the state’s hard selling of this IP law to farmers and “training” them on its legal provisions for registering FVs.

Farmers’ Positions

There have been many reasons why a large majority of small farmers and seed-savers’ groups on ground continue to keep away from the IP system in India. Their reasons range from the political [resistance to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the IP standards it prescribes] to the more practical (not knowing how to deal with intimidating procedures of law). It is important to recall here that the PVP law was passed not because farmers in the country asked for it, but because the WTO required a member country to provide IP protection for plant varieties.

Given the above, there has been limited buy-in by farmers of the idea of plant breeder rights, which they see coming from foreign seed companies and governments that foster such agribusinesses. The idea of privatising seed is foreign to farmers in the sense of it coming from the West as well as in terms of being culturally alien to how farmers organise their innovation based on sharing seeds. Knowledge production in agriculture for them has not been about propertising know-how of seeds through IP.

IP protection for living forms such as seeds is and remains a controversial subject in India, as in other parts of the world. To add to the controversy, the only law in the country that supposedly provides for “farmers’ rights” is this IP law.1 Thus farming communities are more divided than united on their position on the PPV&FR Act. Yet there has been a recent spurt in registration of FVs in India. To understand this trend, it is important to examine the role of the new intermediaries.

There are many go-betweens that have voluntarily emerged, helping to link the farmer to the agro–industrial complex where her knowledge is further processed. Those in between work as IP facilitators. These intermediaries are not engaged in buying the farmer’s gathered harvest as the conventional intermediaries did, but in harvesting the intangible—her knowledge. Unlike the supply chains for agricultural produce, the consumer at the end of the line is not an ordinary person but the plant breeding industry—be it public sector institutes or private seed corporations.

The point of deposit is not the mandi (market), but the national PPV&FR Authority. The process entails filing the prescribed documents before the PPV&FR Authority. In fact, both the law and the implementing rules envisage a role for such intermediaries. Section 16(1) of the act authorises any person to make an application on behalf of the farmer/breeder to the authority. As per Rule 25, an application to authorise such a person to register a variety is to be made through Form PV-1 by the farmer/breeder mentioned in Section 16(1).

No fee is required by the Authority for this authorisation form. But it is a different matter that the person so authorised by the farmer might charge for the services he renders to the farmer in filing a PVP application on her/his behalf. Retired agricultural scientists also “help” some farmers do the necessary documentation for filing PVP applications. Some charge a small consultancy amount for their services to the farmer.2 There could be costs to the farmers again if these activities remain invisible. This could go against the spirit of the act, which prescribes that there be no financial costs to the farmer.

Informally, many non-governmental organisations (NGO) also act as IP facilitators for farmers. They assist farmers with the necessary paperwork, literally showing them “how to” register their varieties with the Authority. Dadaji Khobragade, a well-known farmer–breeder from Maharashtra, was encouraged by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) to seek PVP for the paddy he developed. In fact, NIF is further involved in the commercialisation of Dadaji’s paddy variety, having entered into a marketing agreement with a private company.3 Similarly, the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation has also assisted farmer groups in Tamil Nadu to seek PVP for rice varieties developed by them (Prajeesh 2015).

Given the legalese involved and the fact that most of the forms, etc, are either in the English or Hindi language, farmers will continue to need facilitators for their IP management, particularly if they chose to engage with the PPV&FR legislation.

State Agencies

The state itself is actively encouraging farmer–breeders to participate in the IP system. The Authority has harnessed several public agencies for the task; these are state agricultural universities (SAU), Krishi Vigyan Kendras and other Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institutes. Their role is going to remain critical in this government exercise of IP acculturation of farmers. The Authority, with its limited staff and resources, is not going to be able to reach out to as many farmers as the system wants it to.

The nodal centres designated by the Authority for conducting distinctiveness, uniformity and stability (DUS) tests for plant varieties (for example, the Directorate of Rice Research, Hyderabad and the Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack for rice DUS testing) repeatedly double up as venues for farmer trainings to convince the latter to file for PVP.4 The Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, under the Ministry of Agriculture, had on 1 November 2006 notified rice as a crop eligible for registration of varieties under the act.5 This meant that the five-year cut-off date to receive applications for FVs was October 2011. By that date, 3,672 applications had been received for FVs. All these are still being processed. The large numbers of applications are not merely evidence of farmer’s innovation in this particular crop, but also of the impact of the campaign undertaken by the state agencies to push farmers to seek IP protection.

There have been many training programmes for farmers organised by the Authority itself, with the sole purpose to have them register their plant varieties. These began in 2008–09. In 2013–14, the Authority conducted 274 such training programmes across different locations in India. This explains the highest number of applications received and granted for FVs during 2013–14 (PPV&FR Authority 2014).

Rewarding Intermediaries

The PPV&FR Authority has now decided to incentivise the IP facilitators to get more farmers to file for PVCs. The decision to do so was taken during the 21st Authority meeting and was endorsed again during the subsequent meeting held in Delhi on 17 April 2015.

The Authority in its 21 Authority Meeting held on 31 October 2014 decided to reward those facilitators from NARS and NGOs with recognition certificate, citation and cash of Rs 10,000 who facilitates filing of at least 100 applications at a time in different crops and for staff of Authority for more than 500 applications at a time. It was decided that such reward may also be extended to Zonal Project Directors, once in their lifetime, who facilitate in filing more than 500 applications through NARS from their zone, organise at least two biodiversity fair and promote community seed banks in tribal regions/agrobiodiversity rich regions.6

The stress on speeding up the registration for FVs is because the process is time-bound. FVs can be registered only within five years from the date of notification of a crop variety. In fact, the time limit was originally set at three years, but given the low response from farmers, it was later extended to five years. Yet again there are little or few guarantees of returns for the farmer post-registration. In the many years since the PPV&FR Act has been in force, not a single case of benefit sharing with farmers has occurred if and when their seeds have been used by the seed industry as base material for developing commercial seed products.

While rewards are being institutionalised for the IP intermediaries, some within the Indian national agricultural research system (NARS) are sceptical about the nature of benefits small farmers will obtain from the PVP system. However, they continue to encourage farmers to file for PVP as a pre-emptive IP protection in order to stake a claim on planting material in India before any of the multinational corporations can do so. The public sector itself is seeking IP protection under this act. The maximum number of varieties registered thus far is of extant varieties—868 out of a total of all 1,773 PVCs issued by the Authority through 2007–15.7 Roughly over 800 of the 868 belong to the public sector, mainly ICAR and other SAUs. The state also seeks IP protection for “new” varieties developed by public plant breeders.

IP Policy

The position of the government on PVP is certainly not a neutral one. It is decisively pro-IP in seed. Thus the unsuspecting farmer cannot hope to get objective guidance on the issue from either the state or the Authority tasked to register PVP. The pros and cons of going down the IP route are perhaps not entirely discussed even within the Government of India and its various departments dealing with the issue. Despite that, the proposed new National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy for India encourages more filings and registrations for PVP by farmers.8In the context of increased FVs, the draft document remarks that “(t)he trends in registration under this Act are very encouraging.” However, no official assessment has been carried out on the socio-economic impacts of registration of FVs on farmers.

In a different scenario, the state would invest in educating its farming communities on the possible consequences, or at least support their capacity building on IP issues so that they are independently able to make informed choices on the subject. The decision of whether to seek PVP or not ultimately needs to be theirs. To be able to decide, real-time experience sharing with small farmers from other countries with PVP laws will also be invaluable. In an ideal situation, the state would create opportunities for such experience sharing. But more importantly, if farmers choose not to file for PVP registration, the state ought to offer another option for the protection of their own seed. This would entail having policies that create a facilitative environment for the continuance of their seed cultures.

In closing, it is observed that seeking IP protection for their crop varieties is not something that comes naturally to farming communities in India. They have to be coaxed by the state to seek protection for their plant varieties. But whether the intermediaries at work will be able to continually sell the idea of IP to the unwilling farmers and make them subscribe to it, is a point that should be considered.

Notes

1 Chapter VI on Farmers’ Rights was not in the original draft of the legislation but retro-fitted due to public pressure before it was passed by the Parliament of India.

2 Disclosed by farmer applicants in personal communication with the author in March 2015.

3 “NIF signs agreement with Kaviraa Solutions to take forward farmer developed plant varieties”, National Innovation Foundation of India Press Note, 9 March 2015, http://nif.org.in/press_more.php?pid=20 (accessed on 25 May 2015).

4 Training-cum-workshop on Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 organised at ICAR–CRRI, Cuttack on 27 March 2015, viewed on 20 June 2015, http://www.crri.nic.in/News/crri_latest_news.htm

5 Gazette Notification SO 1884 E dated 1 November 2006, viewed on 20 June 2015, http://www.plantauthority.gov.in/pdf/gnotifi1316.pdf

6 Minutes of the 22nd Meeting of the Authority held on 17 April 2015 at NASC Complex, Delhi, viewed on 23 May 2015, http://www.plantauthority.gov.in/Minutes/twentytwo.pdf

7 http://www.plantauthority.gov.in/, viewed on 12 July 2015.

8 (First Draft) National IPR Policy 24 December 2014, viewed on 12 July 2015, http://dipp.nic.in/English/Schemes/Intellectual_Property_Rights/IPR_Poli…

References

Prajeesh, P (2015): “Farmers’ Rights to Seeds: Issues in the Indian Law,” Economic & Political Weekly, 21 March, Vol L, No 12.

PPV&FR Authority (2014): “Take It to the Farmer – The Farmers’ Rights through Awareness,” PPV&FR Authority, New Delhi, India, June.

AZRA TALAT SAYEED

THE Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research had approved the Seed (Amendment) Bill 2014 last month. And there are reports that the Senate will be meeting shortly to pass it.

However, is it constitutionally possible that the Seed (Amendment) Bill 2014 can be enacted? According to Sindh Secretariat’s legislation director, no resolution from the Sindh Assembly has been passed that would allow the proposed bill to be amended by the National Assembly. As far as it is known, Khyber Pakhtunkwa, Punjab and Balochistan have also not passed any such resolution.

Since the 18th amendment, agriculture has been a provincial subject. It is clear that without such resolutions from the four provincial assemblies, the Seed (Amendment) Bill 2014 cannot be passed by the National Assembly. If the bill is passed, it will be open to legal challenges.

For the activists who are opposing the proposed bill, the future course of action will be to challenge the bill through the legislative process. Another pending bill concerns plant breeders’ rights. In Pakistan, the crux of the new seed legislation is basically to grant intellectual property protection to plant breeders and allow the introduction of genetically engineered (GE) varieties.

Critiques against the pending legislations range from the seed being considered ‘private property’ of the intellectual property right holders to the hazardous impact and environmental pollution from genetically modified plants and animals.

The pro-GMO lobby, which mostly springs from US-trained research institutions, has also provided many reasons for the legal recognition of genetically engineered (GE) seeds and crops. These will, of course, in time also include GE animals.

The crux of the new seed legislation is basically to grant intellectual property protection to plant breeders and to allow the introduction of genetically engineered varieties
Academic institutions and the private sector, especially the agro-chemical and the biotechnology sectors, have consistently claimed that GM technologies are needed to meet the food needs of the rapidly growing global population.

According to them, genetic engineering will also be able to address malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. And of course, the privatisation debate consistently promises prosperity and profits by the adoption of not only genetic engineering but all corporate agriculture interventions, including GE technologies and automated devices for higher productivity and for fighting climate change.

All of these claims are consistently challenged by environmentalists, development activists, scientists, and most importantly, small and landless farmers.

For those who oppose privatisation and free-market economies, the critical problem is not of science but the capitalist paradigm that is pushing all inventions and innovations for the sake of profit-accumulation.

Science for knowledge and science in the service of the people are not the beacons that are held in our universities or other seats of learning. Therefore, for such a lobby, it is difficult to believe the ‘prosperity’ mantra that the mainstream universities and academia are articulating.

The scepticism is valid when considering the debacle of the green revolution policies in the 1960s, the ensuing pauperisation of small and landless farmers worldwide, and its debilitating impact on the environment, loss of fertility of agricultural land, widespread extinction of animal and plant species, and rising hunger and disease.

The highly expensive agriculture technologies only push the small and marginalised producers more into debt, even though they are often orchestrated for their ability to bring prosperity to the poor. For this, the government policies are often ‘tuned’ to meet the demands of transnational corporations that will earn millions of dollars from capturing new agriculture markets.

For instance, a US Department of Agriculture supported institution — Information Systems for Biotechnology — recently published research on GM beta-carotene-enriched corn for poultry feed. For farmers in Pakistan, such feed, whether efficacious or not, is far too expensive and ends up only in decreasing their incomes.

Farmers in Pakistan and other agrarian economies are contesting GM technologies on various grounds.

First, the seeds come from genetic material that is the collective property of farmers across the world. Corporations have no right to access and use the genetic material that is not theirs.

Second, these technologies are extremely dangerous to the environment. Genetic science, especially in agriculture, is a major source of environmental pollution which could jeopardise many ecosystems that are critical for maintaining life on our beleaguered planet.

Third, these technologies are and will only further increase the pauperisation of our small and landless farmers. The reasons are the very high cost of production and privatisation, as well as the deregulation and trade liberalisation policies that are being pushed on millions of farming communities across the world.

The writer is a social activist working with small and landless farmers

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business ,July 13th, 2015

http://www.dawn.com/news/1194012/dilemma-of-the-amended-seed-act

Honorable Mr. Mian Raza Rabbani
Chairman, Senate of Pakistan
Islamabad, Pakistan

July 1, 2015

Subject: Seed (Amendment) Bill, 2014

Respected Sir:

As you are aware, the Seed (Amendment) Act, 2014 was approved in the National Assembly on March 16, 2015.

As the newly appointed Chairman, Senate, this is to draw your attention to the genuine concerns of both farmers and ordinary citizens on the proposed changes in the existing Seed Act, 1976.

You may recall that the Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) has already sent you a letter on March 30, 2015 highlighting the likely ill-effects and un-democratic process of passing this Act. Therein, we had requested your kind attention into this important matter. It is very un-fortunate that the Senate Standing committee has approved of this proposed Act. We have apprehensions about the Senate also approving the same very soon.

We want to once again bring to your kind attention that if this Act will be passed by the Senate of Pakistan, it will be un-constitutional since the claim that a “resolution had been passed from each provincial assembly through which provinces had granted National Assembly to do the legislation in this subject matter”. The so-called resolution has been passed since Agriculture is a provincial subject after the 18th Amendment.

Mr. Chairman, please note that we had inquired from Sindh Assembly Secretariat and found that that no such resolution had been passed by the Sindh Assembly. The Director of the Legislation Department of Sindh Assembly confirmed to us when we visited him on June 29, 2015 that the Sindh Assembly did not pass any resolution in this matter.

In the light of the above mentioned argument, as a veteran legislator and constitutional expert and furthermore as someone who pioneered the 18thAmendment, we hope that you will urgently scrutinise this matter. We urge your personal interest since you are known as the real fighter for provincial autonomy.

Mr. Chairman, please also find attached the letter we sent you on March 30, 2015 in which many farmers organizations and social movements in the country had pointed out many social, technical and scientific issues, which compel us to oppose this Act. Since those issues makes it anti-farmer, anti-people and anti-Pakistan. A law on agriculture must not allow multinational corporations to capture our food and agriculture system.

We, urge you once again that in the higher interest of Pakistan this Act should not be passed.

With kind regards,

Wali Haider
Secretary
Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)
A-1 first floor, Block-2,
Gulshan-e-Iqbal Karachi

JAMAL SHAHID

ISLAMABAD: Cotton growers’ current woes with the genetically modified (GM) Bt seeds have been traced to an agreement that a national research institute signed with a multinational biotech seed producing company in 2006 over the head of Pakistan government, according to knowledgeable sources.

“Dr Yousaf Zafar, the then director of the National Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), signed the agreement with the US-based Monsanto multinational, keeping the ministries of foreign affairs, agriculture and environment and even the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in the dark,” said a senior official of the Pakistan Agriculture and Research Council (PARC).

Under the agreement, NIBGE provided seven indigenously developed cotton seed varieties to Monsanto which inserted Bt toxin into them to kill selective pests, such as bollworms. But their trial tests were run in the USA and then shipped back to Pakistan in 2011 and introduced commercially, even though the Plant Quarantine Act 1976 prohibits import of cotton seed, especially from America.

“Since these genetically modified varieties had not been tested in local environment, they bore no guarantee that they will be disease free and not harm the environment and human health in Pakistan,” said the official.

Director General, Pakistan Environment Protection Agency, Dr Muhammad Khurshid, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned him that the GM seed could be used as ‘a biological weapon’ against Pakistan’s strategic cash crop.

Many agriculture scientists contacted by Dawn were unaware of the existence of the agreement. Some described the seven GM varieties introduced in Pakistan as obsolete by now.

Four out of the seven modified indigenous cotton seed varieties – NIBGE-160, NIBGE-253, NIBGE-758 and NIBGE-4 – had not even been registered with Federal Seed Certification, and other bodies, as required under the Seed Act. Their introduction also violated the Pakistan Seed Act 1976 and the National Bio-safety Rules 2005.

Agriculture experts allege that the agreement “favoured the multinational company more than Pakistan and its farmers”. They quote clause 1.12 of the agreement that gave Monsanto the monopoly right to prepare genetically modified seeds for Pakistan.

This means local farmers not only have to purchase GM cotton seeds from the foreign company but also buy the pesticides that it alone produces, they say.

Worst, the foreign company clearly does not guarantee the success of the genetically engineered seed introduced in Pakistan.

“D&PL (Monsanto) shall not incur any liability for any act or failure to act by employees of NIBGE as a result of the performance of activities pursuant to this Agreement. NIBGE shall not incur any liability for any act or failure to act by employees of D&PL as a result of the performance of activities pursuant to this Agreement,” reads clause 1.14 of the agreement.

Dr Shahid Mansoor, the present director of NIBGE, however, defends the agreement. “Decisions taken in the past were in the national interest, keeping in view the problems of the third world countries and challenges of food security in the future,” he told Dawn.

PAEC’s Director, Agri and Biotech, Dr Nayyer Iqbal, though thinks the agreement should stand null and void after its three-year life.

However, he did not consider it a secret agreement. “It was signed to conduct experiments, which organisations often do and engaging other government offices is not necessary,” he said.

Critics of the agreement and the GM technology claim that cotton production has decreased since the introduction of Bt seeds and use of pesticides has increased. Cotton growers complain about new pests such as dusky bug and the red bugs that have emerged after Bt cotton seed arrived.

Supporters of the GM technology however claim that cotton production has decreased because farmers have switched to growing sugarcane and setting up sugar factories. They disagree that use of pesticides has increased. In any case, they argue, technology will find newer ways to fight pests.

Cotton is Pakistan’s strategic crop and back bone of economy which contribute 12 percent to GDP and engages more than 40 percent work force.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1192649/cotton-growers-woes-traced-to-secret-agreement-on-gm-seeds

In the past month, the Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research approved the Seed (Amendment) Bill, 2014, Roots for Equity has been consistently opposing the proposed Bill. There is now news that the Senate will be meeting in the next week to pass it from the Senate as well.

The basis of genetic science is faulty! It is faulty because due scientific methodologies are not being followed that would allow an unbiased scientific opinion which would merit passing or rejecting genetically modified technologies.

The problem now is not of science but the capitalist paradigm that is pushing all inventions and innovations for the sake of profit-accumulation.  Science for Knowledge, and Science in the Service of People are not the beacons that are held in our universities or other seats of learning.

On the other hand, the suffering of the poor and the downtrodden are used as marketable slogans so that these very expensive, intellectual property driven technologies are forced down the throat of our governments (though really it is not so difficult to force it down . . .  as corruption is rife in government circles) and government policies are ‘tuned’ to meet the demands of the transnational corporations that will earn millions of dollars from capturing new markets, especially agriculture markets.

Recently, studies have been propagated which highlight the use of genetically modified (GM) beta-carotene-enriched corn in poultry feed. Also, a GM wheat was also under trial. The GMO wheat was engineered with synthetic genes to mimic an aphid distress signal that was supposed to repel certain pests called aphid pests.

Both have been critiqued for various reasons. We will not discuss the scientific reasons given for their failure here, as these have been well written and we are posting them on our blog.

However, we would like to highlight other issues based on which farmers from Pakistan are contesting GM technologies.

First, the seeds are using genetic material that is the collective property of farmers across the world. Today, these huge profit-driven corporations have no right to access and use the genetic material that is not theirs.

Second, these technologies are extremely dangerous to the environment. The climate chaos (that appeared as a killer heat wave and took the lives of more than 1200 people in a matter of 3-4 days in Karachi, Pakistan) is a result of the industrial mode of production in the past 150 years or so. Genetic science especially in agriculture is a major source of environmental pollution which could unleash many form of instability in the environment jeopardizing not only the lives of millions of human-beings but many ecosystems that are critical for maintaining life on our beleaguered planet.

Third, these technologies are and will further only increase the pauperization of our small and landless farmers. There are daily reports of farmers across the world of committing suicide. The reason is only the very high cost of production and privatization, deregulation and trade liberalization policies being brutally pushed on millions of farming communities across the world. The ever-rising cost of agricultural inputs, land grabbing, mechanization and now escalating automation in agricultural production is one over-whelming reason for farmers not being able to eke out a living and suffering from malnourishment and hunger.

If we add the impact of new technologies such as hybrid and genetically modified seeds in this mix of anti-farmer policies it is no wonder that farmers have clearly refused to accept genetically modified seeds and crops as an answer to world hunger, prosperity and ludicrously climate change! There is no doubt that genetically modified sees are just the oppose.

GM beta-carotene corn: Who benefits?

http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/16211-gm-beta-carotene-corn-who-benefits

Rothamsted’s GMO aphid-repellent wheat trial a £1 million failure

http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/16264-rothamsted-s-gmo-aphid-repellent-wheat-trial-a-1-million-failure

http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/16264-rothamsted-s-gmo-aphid-repellent-wheat-trial-a-1-million-failure

Jalees Hazir

The hypocrisy of democracy knows no bounds. The surreal Seed Amendment Bill 2014 is ready to be tabled in the Senate for its final stamp of approval. The National Assembly passed it last year on the sly and last week, none other than the Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security & Research approved it. With so many pressing problems of the public that deserve their attention unaddressed, why are our parliamentarians so pushed about facilitating the import and commercialization of harmful Genetically Modified Organisms through this Bill? Who, after all, are they working for?

For whose benefit is this devious piece of legislation being pushed through the houses of parliament without public debate? Why is our government, and the parliament, so eager to open the door wide open for GMO companies, welcoming their seeds of death to pollute what’s left of our fertile fields? Why would they push down our throats something that is being rejected the world over? Don’t they know about the suicides committed by hundreds of thousand small Indian farmers who switched to GMO crops? Are they really ignorant about the lethal impact of these death-filled seeds and the chemicals that come hand in hand with them? How many of them were only misinformed and how many of them bought?

It was reported that the only member of the Senate Standing Committee who objected to the Bill was Senator Mohsin Khan Leghari. He raised most of the points that needed to be raised in the committee that approved it. So why did other members of the committee choose to ignore the valid concerns of their colleague? They didn’t even heed his common-sense appeal not to pass the Bill in haste without creating a mechanism to regulate the introduction and use of GM seeds. There’s no such mechanism in place. So why would our parliament wish to give the GMO companies a free hand to do as they please with our lives, our land and our farmers? Why didn’t Opposition benches bring forth all the damning evidence against GMOs and present the growing list of countries banishing its various essentially harmful crops from their territories?

It would be a gross understatement to term the mega business of Genetically Modified Organisms or GM seeds as controversial. It is downright evil in its impact as well as its intent. It wages a multi-front war; on the meager livelihood of small farmers, on the health of end-consumers, on food security and almost every aspect of our natural environment. The chemicals that are used to grow GMO crops, the fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, poison the earth and the water underneath. A rich diversity of plants, insects and birds are mass murdered on every GMO field. In the long run, the chemicals eventually kill the earth and every living thing that makes it fertile.

If it is allowed to exist at all, GMO-agriculture belongs within the confines of a well-insulated research lab, preferably somewhere in outer space to rule out the possibility of its frankensteins ever contaminating our natural environment. I’d put it in the dustbin of history but don’t wish go through the hassle of convincing the champions of a value-free scientific progress of its folly. Who could argue with their free-floating logic? Interestingly, if they apply their scientific minds to dissect the propaganda of GMO companies, they’d realize that it relies on pseudo-science? Obviously, you can’t call something built upon selective facts as science. You can’t bury all the harmful evidence against GMO-agriculture, quite a bit of it found in the research conducted by GMO companies themselves, and call it science. You can’t bandy about manipulated research and baseless propaganda as proof of the usefulness, harmlessness and even the need of GMO-agriculture, and call it science. If anything, GMO companies have subverted science to invade our markets and our homes.

GMO-agriculture is actually a long way from being safe enough to be taken out of the lab and introduced in our fields. Even GMO companies agree that their seeds need to go through long trial-periods in local environments before they are introduced in the market. Shouldn’t it bother us that the GMO companies have managed to illegally spread their seeds of death in our fields without conducting credible trials? Should we blame the unethical conduct of GMO companies? Or should we blame our parliamentarians who are least concerned about the existing illegal GMO-contamination of our agriculture, and who would now like to legally welcome these killer-seeds without putting in place any safeguards to protect us against their harmful onslaught?

Mouthpieces of these companies in the parliament and bureaucracy, agricultural research institutes and the media, are rewarded in myriad ways for spreading rosy lies about the GMOs and glossing over the dangers they pose. They don’t want to talk about the fallout of cultivating GMO crops on the environment, the damage caused to our health by their consumption or the security repercussions of allowing unethical multinational corporations to take over our agriculture. They don’t want to discuss the pitfalls of creating unholy monopolies that control something as essential as food and the ramifications of destroying our farmers.

GMO-agriculture would reduce the self-sufficient traditional farmer who needs only his labor, his land, and nature’s kindness to grow a variety of wholesome food, to a crippled mono-cropping consumer of GMO seeds and a range of hazardous inputs that come with the package. For the small farmers, highly-priced inputs mean heavy loans. And in the case of a bad harvest or crop failure, not rare when it comes to GMOs, it means losing the land, starvation and suicides.

Is the profit of GMO companies more important to those who claim to represent us than the safety of our food and the livelihood of millions who produce it with their toil and sweat? Are the birds and the bees dispensable to them? Do they think there’d be no price to pay for poisoning this precious land and wiping off the wealth of its many different weeds? Is this what democracy boils down to?

 The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be contacted at hazirjalees@hotmail.com

http://nation.com.pk/columns/18-Jun-2015/gmos-are-seeds-of-war

EDITORIAL

AN amendment to the Seed Act of 1976, working its way through the legislative process, could have far-reaching consequences for Pakistan’s agriculture.

The amendment will essentially open the door to genetically modified seeds, particularly in cotton which is the country’s largest crop.

It does this by providing legal cover for intellectual property rights in seeds. It is important that the legislation be enacted because Pakistan’s per acre yield in cotton has been stagnant for many years now, while India and other countries that have embraced BT cotton, have doubled their yields over a decade.

Pakistan’s cotton crop still enjoys higher yields per acre than India, but lags far behind countries like Egypt and Mexico. Stagnant yields in food and cotton will strain the country’s food self-sufficiency as well as industrial growth.

Further improvements in yields can only come from opening the door to genetically modified varieties, which is a technological innovation akin to the green revolution.

But prospects for the passage of the amendment have been dimmed by a loud chorus of protests. Successive governments have struggled with this amendment, which has been in the works since 2007, and was last brought before the National Assembly in 2010.

Of the arguments that the protesting farmer associations are advancing, there is one that is very potent and should receive high-level consideration. That argument points towards the disruptive impact that the new legislation, particularly its stress on intellectual property rights, will have on the farmers’ right to conserve, sell and exchange seeds amongst themselves.

Many of our small farmers rely on informal exchanges of seeds at sowing time, and opening the door to large private-sector seed companies must not be allowed to shut down these local markets or inhibit their operation.

Pakistan needs to avail itself of the benefits of new seed technologies to keep pace with domestic growing requirements as well as the output of its main competitors.

But it is also important that the new markets that need to be created to make use of these benefits do not shut down existing ones on which the small farmers have become very dependent.

Any disruptive impact that the amendment to the Seed Act can have on livelihoods of small farmers needs to be debated in the Senate as well, and institutional reforms should accompany the new legislation to ensure customary practices are not harmed in the course of ushering in the new technology.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2015

http://www.dawn.com/news/1174330

The enforcement of this law will also be a violation of the 18th Amendment. PHOTO: AFP/FILE

HYDERABAD: The National Assembly’s (NA) enactment of the Pakistan Amended Seed Act, 2014, has rattled the farmers’ community, who fear being flooded by foreign Genetically Modified (GM) seeds.

The NA passed the bill on March 17, although it is yet to be promulgated after the senate and the presidential approval, as the federal government appears determined to sail it through these stages.

“The parliament will approve it during next three months. The new law will allow foreign companies to invest in the seed sector of the country,” said Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayat Bosan.

“The law has been passed to pander to the wishes of multinationals,” said Mohammad Boota Sarwar, a former official of the Punjab Seed Corporation and an expert of locally-produced seeds.

“This can potentially create a monopoly for foreign companies who will exclusively import hybrid and GM seeds to the Pakistani market.”

Once enforced, it will be made mandatory for growers to buy seeds from a licensed company or its dealer. Moreover, the old practice by local farmers can bring penalty and even imprisonment.

“It will be an injustice to small-scale farmers who use informal seed marketing as a livelihood,” said Sarwar.

Sindh Chamber of Agriculture General Secretary Nabi Bux Sathio said the enforcement of this law will also be a violation of the 18th Amendment. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20th, 2015.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/856027/new-seed-law-might-create-foreign-monopoly/