It’s a small change that risks cultivating a big debate.
On one side is the principle of farmer’s privilege — the traditional right of Canadian farmers to save seeds at the end of a growing season and reuse them the next year.
On the other is the principle of plant breeders’ rights — the right of those who develop new seeds and plants to protect and profit from their discoveries.
The issue has been dormant for a decade. Now, proposed changes to government rules regarding plant breeders’ rights are reviving that debate.
It also raises questions about how Canada gets its food and who controls what is grown.
“Ultimately, it’s about food security,” said Keith Currie, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. The group supports the changes, which include narrowing the scope of farmer’s privilege. “Not only keeping us competitive to keep food costs down, but also to make sure that we maintain new varieties coming forward for that food availability.”
In a notice dated Aug. 9, the government announced proposed changes to Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights Regulations — a form of intellectual property protection for plants, similar to a patent. The regulations give plant breeders a monopoly over the distribution of their product for a set period, as a way to to encourage investment and innovations such as varieties with higher yields or more resistant to drought or pests.
It’s a big business. Estimates of the economic impact of the seed industry in Canada range from $4 billion to $6 billion a year.
The changes would remove the right of farmers to save and reuse seeds and cuttings from protected “fruits, vegetables, ornamental varieties, other plants reproduced through vegetative propagation and hybrids.” For most plants recognized under the law, the protections last for 20 years.
Personal gardens and many other kinds of crops such as wheat, cereals and pulses, where seed saving is more widespread, would not be affected.
Among the other proposed changes is to extend the protection for new varieties of mushrooms, asparagus and woody plants like raspberries and blueberries to 25 years from the current 20 years.
A public consultation on the changes runs until Oct. 18.
NDP agriculture critic Gord Johns says the changes raise an important issue for Canadians. He questions why the government is holding the consultation in summer when most farmers are focused on growing and harvesting crops — not drafting submissions for public consultations.
“They keep doing this over and over again,” said Johns of the federal government. “They announce regulatory changes that impact farmers and their livelihoods [and] they schedule the consultation period during the busiest time of the year for farmers.”
Johns said companies producing new kinds of seed should be adequately compensated for their innovation and intellectual property. But he said farmers who grow and harvest the food Canadians eat shouldn’t “be starved by big corporations choking off their seed supply.”
He wants the House of Commons agriculture committee to hold hearings and take a closer look at the changes being proposed.
A spokesperson for Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Heath MacDonald said the government is “committed to encouraging innovation, investment, research and competitiveness in Canadian agriculture, horticulture and ornamental industries.”
The spokesperson said the government “will review all feedback before determining next steps.”
Former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government triggered a debate in 2015 when it adopted measures to bring Canada’s rules more in line with guidelines adopted by the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, known as UPOV 91.
The rules are separate from patent law or technology use agreements which some seed companies use to prevent farmers from saving and reusing seeds.
Changes to plant breeders’ rules are now again on the table. Last year, a government consultation resulted in 109 submissions, the majority supportive of change.
Meanwhile, lobbyists have been busy behind the scenes.
According to the federal lobbying registry, 13 people from several different groups or companies are currently registered to lobby on plant breeders’ rights including the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Canola Growers Association, the Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association and Swiss-based Syngenta, owned by Sinochem, a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
Cathy Holtslander, director of research and policy for the National Farmers Union, says the proposed changes risk hurting farmers while increasing profits and the power of seed-producing companies — often multinationals with foreign ownership.
While the changes are focused on an area of agriculture where seed saving is less common, Holtslander warns the changes are a “slippery slope” that could lead to an erosion of the rights of farmers.
“If they were to go after wheat with the amendment, there would be a huge uproar and people would really be angry and push back,” Holtslander said.
She said what’s being proposed “paves the way” for other crops to be included later.
“The seed industry does not want farmers’ privilege to exist for any seed. They want to be able to require people to buy new seed every year,” she said.
Holtslander’s group plans to fight the proposed changes. She said the issue goes beyond the question of individual farmers reusing seed.
“If the big multinational companies control the seed, they control our food supply,” she said.
Lauren Comin, director of policy for Seeds Canada, acknowledges the issue can be controversial but argues Canada needs strong intellectual property protection if it wants access to the newest innovations to compete on the world stage.
“It’s incredibly important to have these frameworks to encourage investment companies, businesses, public entities, to know that they are going to somehow be compensated and protected,” Comin said.
She said that while the changes “provide that certainty and that incentive for investment,” she wants them to go further.
While acknowledging there isn’t enough certified seed for all of Canada’s cereals and small grains crop, Comin would also like to see farmers compensate plant breeders when they reuse seeds, as they do in Europe.
“The farmer’s privilege does not say that that use is free,” she said.
“[Farmers] can choose to buy the latest and greatest product of innovation, which means that there is a tremendous amount of investment and effort that went toward developing this improved variety. Or they can decide that they don’t value innovation, and they can go back to a variety that’s unprotected and grow that.”
Currie, an Ontario grains and oil seed farmer who saves and reuses seeds, says Canada needs to balance the two principles.
He says farmer’s privilege is key to Canada’s competitiveness, but so is access to new varieties of seeds and plants.
“While I do understand where some of the multinationals want to have better control, I believe in order for the industry to be viable, farmers have to have some control as well,” he said.
