TIMERGARA: Pakistan Kisan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) on Wednesday announced that farmers and peasants across the country would resist any move by the federal government to pass the Seed Amendment Bill 2014, already tabled in the National Assembly.

Speaking at an awareness session arranged for local farmers at Chakdara Press Club, PKMT central secretary Wali Haidar and member Asif Khan said that after the passage of 18th amendment it was the responsibility of the provinces to take control of the matters related to the agriculture department.

“Unfortunately, the provinces through unanimously passed resolutions in their respective assemblies authorised the federal government to bring changes to the agriculture and seed policy and table the proposed bill in the National Assembly,” Mr Haidar said. He wondered that the PTI-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had also handed over the matter to PML-N-led federal government.

He said that Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayat Bosan, who had tabled the bill, was of the view that the amendment to the Seed Act 1976 was required as it did not fulfill the requirements of modern seed industries.

The PKMT leaders termed the bill anti-peasants because under the proposed bill no unregistered person or institution would be allowed to sell seeds without official permission. He said that peasants were the actual owners of seeds and farm production and they should have the right to sell seeds.

The PKMT leaders said that the draft Seed Act was based on the demands of agro-chemical transnational corporations.

They said the farmers had been producing their own seeds for centuries and instead of encouraging them the government was snatching their rights to produce, exchange, buy and sell seeds.

They said that farmers would never allow corporations to control their important input. They demanded of the government to enact legislation for protecting the rights of small farmers.