One of the strangest crowdsourcing appeals I’ve ever seen landed in my in-tray this morning. Sarvari Research Trust, onlie begetters of Sarpo potatoes, are looking for £5000 in order to bring a new variety to market. And the reason they need the money is that the variety has to be certified and approved by the UK government before it is allowed on sale. That’s how most agricultural biodiversity is managed in the European Union; if a variety isn’t registered, which costs money, it can’t be marketed. To protect us, obviously.
The Sarvari Trust says:
We can’t get grant funding for this kind of work because is thought to be near market research and therefore a private matter. Breeders of GM resistant potatoes do get grant support!
Frankly, I think that’s over-egging the pudding a little. The cost of testing and registering a variety is always going to be a “near-market” issue, and I doubt breeders of GM potatoes get support for that aspect of their work. The real scandal is that the fixed costs of variety registration are a huge burden for a small breeder, and trivial for a large one. And farmers and gardeners who would like access to a greater range of agricultural biodiversity are denied choice as a result.
This story touches one of the fundamental problems in agrobiodiversity management and plant breeding today: the lack of systems to encourage small and medium sized NGOs and private entreprises in engaging in providing a higher number of suitable varieties to the farmers and consumers. Unfortunately, many environmental NGOs, in their struggle against the large companies, add to the problems of the plant breeders dealing with other than the major commercial crops. The big companies can, as evidenced here, live with the situation, but that does not benefit the millions of small farmers living in adverse agro-ecological environments, with poorly organised seed systems and market access.
Interesting point. Could you just develop a little your statement “Unfortunately, many environmental NGOs, in their struggle against the large companies, add to the problems of the plant breeders”. I’m not sure what you mean by this.
As I see it, there seems to be a very strong conviction among ENGOs that profit taking in the seed sector is inevitably exploitative, hence the struggle for farmers’ right only and not attempts to balance farmers’ rights with breeders’ rights. One may well argue that the US system for patents is too far on the side of the multinational monopolies, but there appears to be little incentive for SMEs in the South to involve in plant breeding and seed production other than some hybrid seeds. I find that there should be a focus on creating an environment where the SMEs could become more innovative and active, to supplement farmers’ seed saving and CGIAR/NARS activities, in competition with the big companies.
Thanks for that. Frankly, it isn’t the “South” or the US that worry me. It is the EU. In most other countries, there is no barrier to marketing seed if both buyer and seller are aware of its qualities and agree to the exchange. there may be economic reasons and others why it isn’t done, but in principle it is possible. In the EU, the Common Catalogue means that only registered varieties of many species can be marketed. That is a real barrier to innovation and choice.
I may be a little off on the details, but one big difference in the EU versus the US is that other than patents and plant variety protection, there is very little government support for plant breeders rights in the US, and even there, the onus is on the owner to enforce their rights. In the EU, the governments/seed industry typically have a system in place to return royalties to the owner. I see that as one reason for the more restrictive registration process in the EU. It limits the number of varieties the royalty system has to deal with. There is no royalty system in the US unless it is put into place by the seed owner. The legal system can be used to enforce it, but then you get the bad publicity that Monsanto has received. So, in the US we can release pretty much anything as long as we don’t make false claims (and then we are only exposing ourselves to lawsuits) but we have to enforce our property. In the EU, you have to go through this highly restrictive registration process, but have government support in collecting royalties that go back to the breeder. Which system is better? I would say the US system definitely leads to more genetic diversity, but with government funding for public breeding programs dropping, that diversity is likely to suffer unless something changes.
The problem both the US and EU have, indeed most places have, is the barriers for anyone small are too great.
In the EU you have to come up with thousands of euros to register a variety. In the US, if you want PVP or other protection, you have to come up with thousands of dollars for this. In addition, in the US if you need to defend your rights, you are facing additional huge costs for this.
In both the EU and US if you want to get your variety into any sort of official distribution system, regardless of if it’s protected intellectually, you immediately hit up against huge cartels that are in a position to demand huge price concessions from you, if they are even willing to talk to you at all. Regardless of if you go the official distribution route through supermarkets, or you sell your products at markets, you’re still selling your product in competition with other highly subsidized similar products. If you’re a small farmer, you also have major problems getting equipment of appropriate scale, because large farmers refuse to buy equipment from companies that sell to small farmers and so this equipment just isn’t sold.
Reforming the EU system of varietal registration is hugely important, but it’s the first step of many needed to truly allow innovation and choice. There’s still a lot of work to be done!
As a seed supplier or breeder, what small-scale equipment can you not get?
The problem is not so much down to seeds or breeding, it’s working with the land in general.
If you have 1 or 2 hectares, and are working in the range of 5 horsepower, it’s no problem. You can get small tractors, harvesting equipment, threshers and the like. If you go up to 50+ ha and 300 hp, it’s also no problem. There’s lots of large scale equipment.
The problem is when you’re trying to work around 10-20 ha and need 50-100 hp, there’s really almost nothing available. On this scale, you’re frequently working with multiple crops in the field, and you need something small enough to work between rows. It’s also not unusual to be near residential areas, and for example need to get up a driveway, between two houses or work on a hillside. You need a mill that will produce more than 1kg of flour per hour, but less than 500kg per hour. You just can’t use the large scale equipment for these kinds of things.
This problem really shows itself when you’re working with something like grains, which require a whole series of specialized equipment. If you work with grains, and don’t have other farms nearby to share this equipment, it’s really a big problem. Sometimes larger farmers can and will do some of this work for you, but perhaps only at great expense, or maybe you have to transport your crops a long distance first.
This situation generally leaves farmers in the position of resurrecting antiques or trying to build something themselves.
There’s only one place in the world where this scale of equipment is made — Italy. It generally costs as much as the larger scale counterparts, and then has to be transported to wherever the farmer is. This might be manageable if the farmer is near a sea port or in Europe, but not so easy if the farmer is in a remote location and the equipment has to be transported long distances over land. In many cases there are additional costs like import duty, and these farmers are not in a good position to negotiate discounts. It’s just beyond the means of most farmers.
It all comes down to the pressure the large agriculture companies put on equipment makers and the manipulation of markets, and it’s one of the most important reasons there are very few ‘slightly bigger than small farms’. The demand is certainly there.