This year is the reckoning time for plant breeders rights, says the executive vice-president of the Canadian Seed Trade Association.
Plant breeders rights were passed in 1990, but it’s only now that seed companies have been able to get new varieties developed, registered, multiplied and into producers’ hands, Bill Leask said.
This is the summer most companies will try to enforce their rights with errant producers, he said during the association’s annual meeting, and the results will show whether the plant breeders rights system works.
Under plant breeders rights, companies can copyright seed varieties and have the right to stop unauthorized people from using them. That means a producer can buy protected seed, grow it and sell it to the elevator, but can’t buy it, grow it, and sell it for reseeding.
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Selling to any other producer breaks the law. Producers can, however, use the crop for their own seed.
There haven’t been many farmers dragged into court for violating plant breeders rights, Leask said, but a substantial number across the Prairies have been forced to stop selling protected seed varieties.
Many offenders have also been forced to pay off seed companies in out of court settlements to avoid being sued, Leask said.
One thing the companies worry about, he said, is that producers might not realize offenders are being caught, and might not respect the law.
“If there is no visible enforcement out there, growers begin to wonder if the companies are serious,” said Leask.
“If you don’t see any police cruisers along the highway, you wonder if you really have to obey (speed signs),” he said.
Many producers might not realize they’re breaking the law, Leask said, so the companies want to make sure they catch transgressors and inform them.
Plant breeders rights is only one method legal seed sellers are using to protect their varieties, Leask said.
Some, such as Monsanto, are using contract law to make sure they keep control of their herbicide resistant varieties.
Roundup Ready canola growers have to agree to use their seed only once before they are allowed to purchase it. They are not, in the contract, allowed to use seed from their crop.
That’s a much stronger provision than those in plant breeders rights.
Leask said the decision on whether to rely on plant breeders rights or to use other legal methods of retaining control of their products will depend on how effectively plant breeders rights can be enforced in the next year or two.
