Kill Bill - Part II

While private big guns make their cash, the Seeds Bill will strike at the root of rural India and destroy Indian farmers

The Seeds Bill 2004 has been mired in controversy following heavy protests by farmers. Pushed by the Centre, the bill is a direct violation of the farmers’ fundamental right to save, sell and share seeds. It also infringes upon their precious inheritance as breeders and conservers of several kinds of seed varieties. In the backdrop of the Patents Act and the hype of hybrid seeds, the bill raises fresh fears: it can give a free hand to the industry to ravage India’s bio-diversity and indulge in bio-piracy. It outdoes, even the Patents Act in favouring the industry.
The contentious issue is the non-compulsory declaration of the origin of the seed variety at the time of registration. As per the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2002, the disclosure of source and geographical origin of the biological material and the deposition of the ‘subject matter organism’ in the National Gene Bank is mandatory. In the Convention on Bio Diversity, following the Doha ministerial mandate, the government of India and other developing countries had asserted that all patents on biological systems should declare the source of origin while mandating ‘benefit sharing’ from the gains accrued from the commercialisation of the patent. This was incorporated in the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act (PPVFR) and the Biological Diversity (BD) Act. These regulations made sure that the benefits from a new variety developed by crossing a native variety with any other variety would percolate down to the farmers.
Conversely, the Seed Bill 2004 does away with the declaration of parentage while registering a new variety. With such a proposed legislation, the Union ministry of agriculture contradicts all relevant national legislations like the BD Act, PPVFR and the Patents Act. It also deprives farmers of all major benefits.
Says S. Bala Ravi, former Assistant Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), “With the Seeds Bill promoting seeds export without enforcing plant breeder rights and stringent identity, the piracy of agro-biodiversity gets legitimised. Who will check at the port as to what variety of seed is being exported? I might declare one variety and export another.”
Meanwhile, this provision gives private companies special advantage in the case of hybrid varieties. While the Indian Patents Act denies patent to plant variety, the Seeds Bill implicitly offers a ‘super patent’ right on hybrid plant varieties. The registration under the Seeds Bill offers an exclusive marketing right from 15 to 18 years or double of the term. As for hybrids, as long as its parentage is kept secret, it offers an exclusive monopoly right to its owner. This means that the farmers cannot save and re-sow from the hybrid seeds. When the registration period can be extended to as long as 38 years, it’s tantamount to a ‘super patent’ right. “The private sector is largely interested in hybrid seed technology. But nowhere in the world is such exclusivity given,” says Ravi.
Another pertinent question is about the threat to farmers’ varieties. Owned and developed by farmers, these varieties exist where agriculture is not intensive like dry land agriculture, hill agriculture, tribal agriculture, etc. Viewed from the point of yield and profit, many farmers’ varieties cannot compete with modern varieties. Consequently, under nation-wide pressure to produce more, high yielding varieties (HYV) are likely to get preference over the farmers’ varieties.
However, the farmers’ varieties, although not superior in yield, possess traits like resistance towards biotic and abiotic pressures, better adaptability to different agro-ecological situations and have high economic value. Hence their protection and conservation is important. If we are sensitive towards the impending catastrophe haunting their lives and livelihood, there is no option but to promote a national policy for on- farm conservation of all farmers’ varieties in their respective regions of adaptation, apart from the conservation in the National Gene Bank.
In some cases it is seen that the farmers’ varieties are either as competitive or even better than the scientist-bred varieties. Indeed, the Seeds Bill has no provision for helping farmers in developing and commercialising their varieties. On the contrary, it may entirely wipe out their existence.
With a very low seed replacement rate in many crops, the private seed industry will not be able to satisfy the national seed demand for many years to come. This gap cannot be filled by the public seed sector that has been sick and non-performing. “How long will this public sector exist under intense competition is well imaginable. More than that, the private seed industry will not be keen in those crops which do not offer high volume of sale and massive profits. The consequences of such regulations, institutional functioning and market driven private seed industry interests are much too obvious,” says Ravi.
In other words, a disaster awaits invisible India. And at the end of this epic tragedy will be the poor and marginalised Indian farmer.