The National Farmers Union is pushing back against regulations that would narrow the scope of farmers’ right to save seed or propagate crops from cuttings and tubers.
“This is a direct threat to food security, seed sovereignty and farmer autonomy,” the NFU said on its website.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is in ongoing consultations around plant breeders’ rights regulations as part of the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act.
What would change?
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The proposed amendments would:
- Limit the scope of farmers’ privilege to save seed only to crop kinds where there is a long-standing practice of saving and reusing seed. According to an impact analysis statement posted in the Canada Gazette on August 9, this would preserve the ability to save small grain and pulse seeds, but remove the right to save fruit, vegetable or ornamental plant seeds or propagate those vareties through tubers or cuttings. It would also bar the saving of hybrid seeds.
- Extend the duration of plant breeders’ rights protection to 25 years for crops that take longer to breed and gain market acceptance.
- Narrow the concept of sale for filing a plant breeders’ rights application.
- Reduce the plant breeders’ rights application fee to encourage filing electronic applications.
The purpose of the changes is to increase plant breeder protections in relation to other jurisdictions like the United States and European Union, which the CFIA said offer stronger intellectual property protections for plant breeders.
“As a result, these jurisdictions may have a competitive advantage in attracting investment and innovation in plant breeding,” the CFIA said in a ‘what we heard’ report.
NFU pushback
However, the NFU says these increased protections will come at farmers’ expense. It argues the consequences will include:
- Higher annual production costs due to increased seed and royalty expenses.
- No access to protected varieties that might be discontinued before the protection period expires.
- No access to protected varieties not available through licensed nurseries or seed sellers.
- No opportunity for farmers to adapt new varieties to local conditions by using saved seeds or propagating material harvested on their farms.
- No ability to replace lost fruit trees from the farm’s stock of the variety.
- Further entrenchment of “largely foreign private plant breeding.”
“The ultimate goal of the corporate seed sector is to require annual purchase and royalty payments for all crop kinds,” the NFU said in a news release.
The NFU called for people to sign a Parliamentary e-petition that would call for the government to abandoned the proposed changes.
The e-petition had 2,525 signatures at time of writing.
Industry response to changes
According to the CFIA, the industry is largely in favour of the proposed changes.
The agency held online consultations between May 29 and July 12, 2024 and heard from producer groups representing the agriculture, horticulture and ornamental sectors, international horticulture and ornamental growers, the organic sector, plant breeders, seed companies and others.
Support was consistent across almost every sector, the CFIA said in the ‘what we heard’ report. About ten per cent raised concerns.
“A provincial group representing fruit growers strongly endorsed the proposed amendment, indicating that the farmers’ privilege should not extend to asexually reproduced ornamental and fruit varieties,” the report said.
Other responses suggested the current regulation could be hindering research and innovation and that the changes could reassure foreign and domestic breeders about the strength of intellectual property protection in Canada. This could, in turn, improve access to new varieties.
“The fruit, vegetable, and ornamental sectors are highly dependent on genetics from foreign jurisdiction,” said Keystone Agricultural Producers in a July 12, 2024 submission.
“Adding clarity to farmers’ privilege will increase the confidence of plant breeders who are interested in doing business in Canada.”
The group also agreed with exempting hybrids from farmers’ privileges, saying saving of hybrid seed isn’t typical due to legal and contractual restraints and cropping issues like lower yields.
