NESBITT, Man. Ñ When Dana Fisher works out the costs to grow a crop, he sometimes wonders where the profit will come from.
The cost of fuel and fertilizer keeps going up, while the prices he can expect for his crops often are lackluster.
One of his strategies for survival in farming is to hunt down savings on inputs. In his case, that includes using farm-saved seed to plant his cereal crops.
Given the low prices he expects to earn from his cereals, he finds it impossible to justify buying certified seed each year.
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“If we have some of our own seed, we try to keep it pure and clean that up for next year,” said Fisher, while stopped in a field near Nesbitt to make an adjustment on his air seeder. “I think it’s very important to be able to keep your own seed.”
But according to one farm group, the ability of farmers to save their own seed could be in peril if the federal government goes ahead with changes to the Canadian Plant Breeders’ Rights Act.
The National Farmers Union argues that the proposed changes will leave farmers with only a weak privilege that could someday be swept away, leaving them at the mercy of the companies developing and marketing seed varieties.
“It’s the wrong approach to give all of these rights to transnational seed companies and to give farmers these fragile and temporary privileges,” said NFU research director Darrin Qualman.
Seed companies want the Plant Breeders’ Right Act overhauled to bring it in line with an international standard that they say will encourage further investment in crop innovation in Canada. And those companies say that rather than removing a farmer’s right to save seed, the updated legislation would entrench that right.
“The main objective of our supporting PBR is to encourage investment and innovation,” said Bill Leask, executive vice-president of the Canadian Seed Trade Association.
“We believe that investment and innovation is hopefully a way out of the horribly depressed situation that Canadian agriculture is in right now.”
But the debate about changing the plant breeders legislation goes beyond the question of whether farmers will lose the ability to save seed for replanting on their farms.
The NFU suggests the changes will give the seed industry a hammer to wield against farmers suspected of using protected seed illegally. The Canadian Wheat Board predicts the changes could lead to a “commercial nightmare” if the ability to collect royalties is extended to harvested grains.
Meanwhile, a group of Saskatchewan growers is exploring whether it is time to take back control of some of the investment in canola variety development due a mounting outcry about seed costs.
“It’s simply gotten too expensive relative to the profit or margins that are in field crop production,” said Jim Caughlin, who farms near Tisdale, Sask., and chairs the Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission.
“The thing we need is an alternative. If there is no alternative then they (seed companies) can write their price on the chalkboard and say ‘take it or leave it.’ “
