When a harvested material from a protected plant variety, such as seeds, is used for further sowing and cultivating, royalties need to be paid to the breeder of this protected variety. However, according to breeders, farm-saved seeds are sometimes used as an excuse to avoid paying royalties, and clear definitions should be established internationally. Conversely, small farmer associations think that once farmers buy a protected variety, they should be able to re-use those seeds, exchange or sell them.
That’s the topic of an UPOV seminar held a couple of days ago, as summarized by IP-Watch. It’s one of those things, I think, where any reasonable person should be able to see both sides of the argument. Which are eloquently presented in the extensive materials provided.
In the end, though, I was particularly encouraged by this statement:
Axel Metzger of the University of Humboldt, Germany, said not many cases about breeders’ right infringement have been brought to court in Germany.
The debate should not be just about paying royalties to the breeder but about the impact of the FAO Seed Treaty. Art. 13.2.d.ii of the Treaty says a tax will be paid:- `… except whenever such a product is available without restriction to others for further research and breeding’, which does not (I think) apply to UPOV 1991, which places restrictions on saved seed – the target of the seminar. If farmers are `breeding’ saved seed illegally (as the seed activist NGO seem to think farmers are always doing) then there are obvious legal restrictions to what they are doing, triggering the tax. The USA – just by ratifying the Treaty – will find itself paying potentially billions of dollars to FAO. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially as pre-UPOV 1991 countries (e.g. Norway and Canada) will not have to pay the tax.
Just to remind readers of the technical dimension of this discussion. Farmers will save seed of self-pollinated crops like wheat. It is noted that in many countries the seed replacement rates for self-pollinated crops is quite low. In some European countries schemes have been developed to counter this problem with collecting a fee from farmers when then sell their crop in order to support plant breeding. Farmers can save seed of hybrids like maize but what they will get when they plant it is questionable so seed saving of hybrids is not done. So with hybrids there is not an issue of farmers saving seed.
Tom: Thanks. I am all for farm-saved seed. Farmers here in northern Scotland do it all the time but only for a few years with each seed batch as farm-saved seed eventually deteriorates in quality – for example, more off-types and herbicide-resistant black grass (Alopecurus myosuroides) contamination. Seed quality is not much of a problem – most barley is fed to livestock after a light milling to get rid of the nasty awns. There is some wheat-barley intercrop to produce grain for livestock feed: getting the maturity right is a problem. Things are different for malting barley for whisky: seed is top quality and bought each harvest as grain quality control is tight. What does not happen is on-farm evolution of new varieties: seed is replaced before that is apparent. And we do have one of the oldest barley varieties: `bere’, thought to date from the 8th century. I suspect this is all farm-saved seed – I wonder what happens to the genetic diversity of bere after 1200 years?