DEVELOPMENT: India to Ditch Farmers for Big Firms – Activists

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jun 7 2002 (IPS) - Food security activists who campaigned for years to get India’s farmer-friendly Plant Varieties Protection Act passed last year are aghast at the government’s attempt to reverse the gains achieved by that law.

They say the government is taking a step backward by acceding to the international Union for Protection of Plant Varieties (UPOV), which critics say promotes the interest of seed transnational corporations (TNCs) in the developed world.

Yet India’s Plant Varieties Protection (PVP) Act, passed by Parliament, and the government’s accession to UPOV by bureaucratic fiat are mutually incompatible, argues Suman Sahai of the New Delhi-based non-government organisation Gene Campaign.

“India can either be a member of the UPOV or implement its Plant Varieties Protection Act; it cannot do both at the same time,” said Sahai, whose organisation works for the protection of genetic resources and farmers’ interests.

He says that the proper way for India to join UPOV would have been to have this discussed thoroughly in Parliament, rather than “sneaking” it past with an announcement of its approval by the Cabinet.

Gene Campaign is internationally known for its proposal to set up the Convention of Farmers and Breeders (CoFaB) as an alternative to UPOV, which protects breeders’ interests and which critics say runs against farmers’ interests, especially those in developing countries.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Human Development Report for 1999 described CoFaB as a “strong and coordinated international proposal which offers developing countries a far better alternative to European legislation, by focusing on the need to protect rights and food and nutritional security goals of their people”.

Other India-based NGOs that have consistently opposed UPOV, which was set up by a lobby of plant breeders in western countries, include the Research Foundation for Science Technology and Environment and the Forum for Food Security and Biotechnology.

According to Devinder Sharma, head of the Forum, TNCs are driven by the need to recoup the billions they spend on developing plant varieties.

Thus, he says, they need the monopoly rights offered by UPOV, which works by denying farmers the control they have traditionally enjoyed over their own, often superior and biodiverse seed varieties.

Sharma says this has led to a loss of seed varieties. It has also led, he says, to unsustainable farming practices and to farmers in countries like India supporting inappropriate and sometimes dangerous research.

An example of this kind of research is the technology behind what is called the “terminator seed”, which self-destructs after a single crop to ensure that the farmer continues to buy branded seed from the big western firms.

The campaigners say the fact that India is becoming a signatory to UPOV — even before the ink on the PVP Act had dried – indicates that the country, a major independent agricultural entity, has finally succumbed to powerful seed TNCs in developed countries.

But these fears are unfounded, says a spokesman in India’s agriculture ministry. India, he adds, would be joining the UPOV on its own terms since it already has domestic laws enacted prior to its membership.

The spokesman says that the protection to farmers, already enacted beforehand, would not have to be withdrawn as a result of India’s joining UPOV.

He also argues that by joining UPOV, India would acquire the skills and material resources for improved plant breeding.

But this does not convince critics like Sahai, who point out that Parliament, which is currently not in session, is being kept in the dark on this new development.

He adds that unnecessary haste was displayed in India’s joining UPOV, even when it is under no compulsion under the WTO and Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regime to sign up to UPOV.

As for acquiring news skills and material for plant breeding, activists say that public sector research organisations such as the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), already have proven capabilities and are able to export some of these overseas.

“India’s Green Revolution, which is responsible for overflowing granaries and a 60 million tonne surplus food stock, is the product of the skills and capabilities of ICAR scientists,” Sahai said.

India is so far the only country in the world to have enacted a law that instead of granting mere exemptions to farmers, has spelled out explicit and proactive rights that they have, including that of saving and exchanging seeds and selling non-branded seed varieties.

According to Indian law, it is mandatory to seek the farmer’s permission before using the farmer’s variety for breeding work, and royalty for its use has to be paid into a National Gene Fund.

India’s law also grants compensation rights if a breeder seed is found to be of poor quality and led to crop failure.

When it was enacted 10 months ago, the law was hailed as a piece of ‘sui generis’ legislation that succeeded in taking advantage of the flexibility offered in the TRIPS provisions while sidestepping the UPOV altogether.

It was even seen as a model for other developing countries to frame their own legislation to comply with TRIPS requirements.

UPOV works like patent system and allows western seed companies to charge royalties or fees from farmers that use its seeds. For decades, it has been eyeing farmers in Asian countries as a potential market for their products.

Large countries like India, which have developed their own public sector research systems, have thus far been able to resist the designs of the TNCs, which were looked upon with deep suspicion by past socialist governments.

However, this policy changed in the years since 1998, when India began to be ruled by the business-friendly, right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.

Earlier this year, the government approved the commercial cultivation in India of genetically engineered, pest-resistant, Bt-cotton developed by the U.S. seed giant Monsanto in spite of widespread protests by farmers and scientists.

Said Sahai: “If India joins the UPOV, it will have failed not only its own people but also a block of developing countries that look up to this country.”