The Convention on Biological Diversity and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources not only introduce new difficulties in the exchanges and uses of genetic resources but rekindle the international debate on farmers rights. The laws and regulations which are promulgated these days in some developing countries, and more generally the ongoing debate in international and non governmental organizations, show that, as usual, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

The good intention was to remember that, for millenaries, the conservation and development of biodiversity, and specifically the breeding activities, were handled by farmers. This recognition was very important in the developing world and the former communist countries because these countries excluded farmers from breeding and seed production. In the developed countries, and specifically in Europe, the fact that the seed sector developed through family-owned and farmer-owned companies explains why this claim was frequently misunderstood. That explains why the seed sector at first didn't see any reason to comment on this state of affairs.

But today, and even more tomorrow, we must discuss this because the risk is too great that individuals who claim to defend the “farmers’ rights” will in fact destroy everything that was achieved over hundreds of years and moreover during the last fifty years in favour of the rights of farmers. We can list here four main farmers' rights:

1. The Right to Access Genetic Resources
   Anchored in theory in the desire to protect traditional knowledge and "farmers varieties", some of the new laws, e.g. in India, are limiting access to genetic resources and requiring the users to pay state fees. Actually, in these countries, the only free access to genetic resources for breeding is reserved to new varieties protected through breeders' rights conforming to the UPOV Convention, when these rights exist.
    

2. The Right to Breed
   This is considered quite normal in western countries, but in many developing countries plant breeding has been exclusively handled by public research institutions. Sometimes, laws even prohibit anyone else from creating new varieties. This explains why, with liberalisation setting in, the concept of participatory plant breeding is so successful. The irony is that the same concept is used against breeders in Europe, where conventional plant breeding has always been done by farmer-owned companies and for farmers.
    

3. The Right to Choose the Varieties which Will be Grown
   NGOs which are so upset about plant breeders' rights are proposing 100% public research and breeding. In a manner of speaking, they advocate transferring something like the Senegalese seed breeding system to France instead of the other way around. Senegal, where peanut producers (the main crop in this country with 1 million ha) have 5 varieties to choose from, the oldest one released in 1955 and the youngest one in 1990. By comparison, the system in place in France and opposed by the NGOs offers corn producers (2 millions ha) as many as 1500 different varieties.
    

4. The Right to Buy Good Quality Seed
   Today, due to history and culture, countries with no compulsory quality control, such as the USA or Japan, and countries with compulsory certification, such as European countries, offer good quality seeds. What is not possible is to mix the two systems without at least creating unfair competition or, quite possibly, jeopardizing or halting the development of seed production and the creation of new varieties. That is what's happening in several African and Asian countries, and that is the aspiration of many green and anti-globalisation NGOs in western countries.

For the true rights of farmers to improve their income and their environment, it's time for seed professionals to stand up and defend what forty years of plant breeders' rights has enabled them to achieve: a well balanced system between funding for breeding activities and free access to genetic resources.

We need to share with the rest of the world the benefits of these specific intellectual property rights and oppose those who are in favour of the patentability of varieties as well as those who want to privatize genetic resources in the name of farmers.

François Burgaud can be reached at francois.burgaud@gnis.fr
 

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