GHANA’S PLANT BREEDERS’ BILL
The workshop discussed the key features of the Bill, noting that the
Bill is modeled on the 1991 Convention of the International Union for
the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). It was noted that few
developing countries are members of UPOV and of these most are members
of UPOV 1978 and not UPOV 1991. It also emerged that the 1991
Convention is a restrictive and an inflexible regime that does not allow
Ghana to develop a legal framework for plant variety protection that
suits the agricultural conditions prevailing in Ghana.
The intellectual property agreement in the World Trade Organization
(known as the TRIPS Agreement) allows Ghana to develop a ‘sui generis’
(of its own kind) system for plant variety protection. Ghana should use
this flexibility to develop a plant variety protection/plant breeders’
regime that suits its national conditions as many developing countries
have done. The bill pending in the Parliament fails to do that.
The Bill is unbalanced and inequitable. It strengthens breeders’ rights
and does not reflect the interests and needs of the smallholder farmers
that are the backbone of Ghana’s agricultural system. Breeders of new,
distinct, uniform and stable varieties are given extensive rights under
the Bill. On the other hand, the Bill does not accommodate the specific
characteristics of farmer varieties and nor does it contain specific
provisions that safeguards the interests of smallholder farmers such as
their right to freely use, save, sell and exchange farm saved seeds.
The Bill only states that the minister shall in making regulations take
into account the need to safeguard the legitimate interests of breeders
and to permit farmers to make ‘personal use on their own holdings’ of
farm saved seed. This is a very limited provision and it is simply
unacceptable that it does not safeguard the interests of millions of
smallholder farmers in Ghana.
It is also equally unacceptable that the Bill places the burden of
enforcing the private rights of breeder on the state and taxpayer by
criminalizing infringement of breeders’ rights.
The Bill also lacks safeguards that are important to protect public
interest and to prevent misappropriation of Ghana’s genetic resources as
well as to ensure fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from
the utilization of local germplasm.
The workshop also noted that the Bill has been developed without
consultations with the wider civil society and smallholder farmer
community.
The workshop noted that the Bill is inconsistent with Ghana’s
obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and
Agriculture.
GHANA’S BIOSAFETY ACT
Ghana’s Biosafety Act is often referred to as the worst such law on the
continent as it contravenes several provisions of the Cartagena Protocol
on Biosafety, an international environmental agreement to which Ghana
is Party. This Protocol was negotiated by the international community to
regulate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in recognition that this
technology is new and poses risks to the environment, human health and
society.
The Ghana Biosafety Act allows the regulatory agency to grant exemptions
that undermine the risk assessment and public consultation processes of
the Biosafety Protocol. It also ensures that independent oversight of
GMOs is near impossible by seriously limiting public access to
information and participation in decision-making. The Ghanaian Act
represents a permitting system to allow foreign corporations to sell
their product rather than a Biosafety System designed to protect the
health, environment and socio-economic well-being of Ghanaians. GMOs are
designed for large-scale industrial farmers and have no place in
Ghana’s agricultural system, which is based on small-holder farmers.
GHANA’S PLANT AND FERTILIZER ACT
Ghana’s Plants and Fertilizer Act, 2010, Act 83 in Part Two deals with
seed regulation. It promotes/supports only industrial plant breeding and
does not deal with smallholder farmer managed seed systems, the need
for the conservation of land races and traditional varieties and ignores
farmers’ rights. The entire orientation of the law is towards
genetically uniform, commercially bred varieties in terms of seed
quality control and variety registration. It creates an exclusive seed
market for certified improved, commercial varieties of seed and excludes
farmer varieties from this marketing system. The market for registered
seed is not for African farmer breeders but for multinational companies.
The implementation of this Act will result in the total marginalization
of small farmers and their needs and is also setting the stage for
thousands of small elite farmers who will be drawn into seed
certification systems, which can later also be used for GM seed
production in the near future.
From here
Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.
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