The federal government wants to restrict farmers' ability to save seeds and other reproductive plant materials like tree grafts for some crops – and is asking farmers to comment on the changes during the height of the growing season.
Last month, the government announced it is considering amendments to Canada's seed laws that would force farmers to pay seed companies royalties for decades after their original purchase of seeds from protected varieties of plants. Even if farmers grow that plant variety in later years with seed they produced themselves from earlier crops, instead of buying new seed, they must pay the royalties for over 20 years.
If passed, the changes will apply to horticultural crops like vegetables, fruit trees and ornamental plants. They will also restrict farmers’ ability to save and use hybrid seeds, which combine the desirable traits of several genetically different varieties. Public consultations on the proposed changes opened May 29, 2024 and ends on July 12, 2024.
Critics say the move will further exacerbate a crisis in Canadian seed diversity, supply and resilience to climate change. Over the past 100 years, 75 per cent of agricultural biodiversity has declined globally, and only 10 per cent of remaining crop varieties are commercially available in the country.
Most vegetable seed used in commercial farming is produced outside the country, leaving it vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and mal-adapted to the country's unique climates, according to a May report by the Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security.
The move comes amid a push by federal officials and agrochemical companies to modify Canada's seed and gene editing laws, a push that recently saw the government let companies sell gene-edited crops without being labeled as such. Taken together, the changes benefit companies at the expense of farmers, the environment and Canada's food security in the face of climate change, says Aabir Dey, Canadian Program Director at SeedChange.
"This is just part of the process, as far as I understand it, of interpreting and changing the regulations so that they can be more profitable for companies that are looking to sell proprietary seed," Dey said. "The way that intention will be communicated publicly is to encourage innovation in the sector [but] whether these types of intellectual property regulations encourage innovation is highly contested."
A spokesperson for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), which is leading the consultations, said in a statement that the changes are meant to "bring Canada's intellectual property framework in line with international standards [and] strengthen intellectual property rights for plant varieties, encourage greater investment in plant breeding, and enhance accessibility to foreign varieties for Canadian farmers."
While the rules will restrict farmers' ability to save and re-use seed, they will not prevent them from saving seed to breed new varieties. The rules also do not apply to open-source seed, which make up "the majority of plant varieties available in the marketplace," they wrote.
Farmer's Privilege
For millennia, seeds were largely produced by farmers, orchardists and gardeners, who would keep seeds from their crops and plant them the following year. Breeders created new varieties by selecting seeds or cuttings from plants with desirable characteristics, crossing them with others and – over many generations – transforming them into a plant well adapted to specific environmental, economic and cultural needs.
It’s how humans arrived at non-poisonous almonds and people bred Brussels sprouts, kale, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower from the same plant.
Farmers could sell their seeds, and the legal framework for companies to patent or retain intellectual property rights for seed did not exist.That started to change in recent decades. As agrochemical companies like Monsanto – now owned by Bayer – or Corteva developed seeds that delivered higher yields and could withstand intensive fertilizer and pesticide use, they pressured world governments to create a web of regulations to patent the seeds and make farmers pay more to use them.
However, Canadian current seed laws, which were developed in the 1990s following an international agreement, have since included a provision that lets farmers save and use their own seed – the so-called "Farmer's Privilege." Patenting laws are stronger in the US, and the E.U. has more restrictive intellectual property laws.
The proposed changes to Canada's seed laws would curtail that legal tradition and develop stronger patenting and intellectual property laws for seeds. They would also limit the Farmer's Privilege for hybrid seeds, which are more complicated to develop, according to the government's consultation documents. The changes would help "Canada better align with other similar jurisdictions," making it easier for Canadian farmers to access seeds developed by plant breeders in those regions, the documents argue.
Agrochemical companies have for decades used similar arguments to push for limits on the Farmer's Privilege and other rules that protect seeds from intellectual property rules and patents, said Cathy Holtslander, director of research and policy for the National Farmers Union.
“These companies want to have access to plant breeding because it's very lucrative," she explained.
"Everybody needs to eat. In order to eat we need to grow food, to grow plants and to have access to that seed and other propagating materials. If the companies can control that, they can make a lot of money off of it and have a major influence over our agricultural system based on what kinds of seeds they offer and how those seeds interact with fertilizers and pesticides."
As the climate and biodiversity crisis worsen, farmers need to start reducing – not increasing – their synthetic pesticide and fertilizer use, Dey said. Pesticides are linked to biodiversity loss, while the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from Canada's farming sector after livestock.
Moreover, he noted that adapting to the planet's rapidly changing climatic conditions will be easier if farmers have access to a diverse pool of plant varieties at hand. That will reduce their reliance on imported seeds and make it easier for them to tailor those varieties to meet their local climate.
Those concerns were echoed by Daniel Brisebois, a farmer and plant breeder from Quebec. Having access to existing varieties is "really important" for them to "be able to improve them and adapt them to our situation and to future situations and future contexts," he said. Hindering this access, as the regulations would, "doesn't protect anybody" except large seed companies.
In a rebuttal, the CFIA spokesperson noted that the "changes are intended to encourage innovation in plant breeding, potentially leading to more climate resilient crop varieties and improved genetic diversity."
Beyond their impact on food security, climate resilience and farmers' well-being, the changes would also make it harder to access what he considers the best part of plant breeding: fun.
Plant breeding is "like magic," he said. "It's really engaging; there's an artistic side, a creative side. You're seeing the wonder of what the world can do."
Update: This story was updated on July 11, 2024 to include comment from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. It was also corrected to clarify some technical details.
Comments
Once more , we see the overwhelming influence of lobbies. And the heck with the good of the population.
And the seed companies have a stranglehold over us at exactly the time when we must have localize access to our food supply; climate change will cause massive disruption in our global distribution system. A few years ago, floods caused serious damages to roads and railroads in BC. Goods were in containers in BC while people were waiting for them!
U hit the nail on the head. We citizens no longer count, Big Business is capturing our governments slowly and surely. Alberta was the first to go as Big Oil is now in charge
Damn right.
Lobbyists prevail. Profit over the public. Where is our present government leading us and as Poilievre is 10 X more private sector, one can tell where we will up.
If you spend money developing a product, why would you want the user of the product to have the right to continual reuse? To make that pay, you'd have to charge a lot more for the initial use of the seed.
I'd also point out that this change to royalties would not only protect existing seed companies but new small plant breeding outfits who want to protect their inventions from the big boys.
Brilliant points, and in such noble spirit, I'd like to sell you a single-use car.
What's that, you say? It should be good for more than one trip? Ludicrous, do you know how much money I'd stand to lose if you didn't purchase it? Honestly, I am agog at the audacity of your refusal to endorse my rights to boundless profiteering.
Developing a product, huh? So, you waved a wand and said "let there be a new plant!" and lo, it emerged out of nothing. Only you deserve the credit and the money. Not, say, nature, or many generations of plant breeders before you, who gave you 99.9 % of what you ended up with.
As to the new small plant breeding outfits . . . Hahahahaha!!!! Good one. Oh wait, you were serious--just a moment while I laugh even harder.
This is ridiculous! So, I buy something that produces seeds, but I am not allowed to plant those seeds for more of the same. Capitalism at it's finest. This would be no different than buying a vehicle, but I can't make more than one trip without paying for another trip. Ridiculous!
In the dawn of time, Canadian governments had agricultural research labs that grew experimental crops bred for Canadian conditions. I hope they still do. They used to sell these government-developed crops (I believe durum wheat is an example) to farmers—who would then keep some grain as seed for the following year. It wasn’t “farmer’s privilege,” it was “the way we do things.”
However, government labs are always short of funding and staff (yes, that’s the voice of experience). I strongly doubt commercial biotech and agri-industry labs have this problem. Commercial labs also have CEOs and shareholders who expect a return on investment. The larger, and longer, the better. Hence the lobbying for more protection of corporate “intellectual property,” even if it’s edible.
That anonymous CFIA spokesman might as well have read aloud the industry talking point about encouraging innovation. They’ve been saying that ever since Monsanto announced it was genetically altering canola to resist glyphosate herbicide. The keep-quiet-about-this point is “If we breed it, you gotta pay for it.” (Usually, we gotta pay through the nose.)
Canada would be far better off to drastically increase federal funding for crop research, specifically to identify plant cultivars suitable for our changing climate. The American and EU bioengineering companies can overcharge farmers at home.
I totally agree with your statement, keep big corporations out.
Bastards.
One thing we should be clear about: Modern-style strong patent protection STIFLES innovation, it does not encourage it. Technologies build on each other; patents mean you can't build on prior innovation.
"If I have seen far, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants!" "Sorry, you have to pay a royalty for each of these 327 giant-shoulder components."
The "developers should be able to profit from their innovation" argument is overused and abused. First, much of the research is publicly funded in universities and experimental farms. Most importantly, a variety of plant is just its genome which, like any software, costs nothing to copy. The production cost of a new variety is the same as the old one in the neighbouring field.
Seed companies start with genetic material (e.g. seeds) that nature and millions of farmers and other breeders have developed over millennia and they improve this material in some useful way; they also produce huge quantities. So, they have a right to be compensated for their work, but they should also compensate their predecessors by returning a portion of their profit to government laboratories and seed banks, the guardians of the past.
If they are like most companies, they frequently come out with a "new or improved variety", even each year. So, let them charge what they can get for the new variety and the farmers can continue to use it as they wish ( keep using their old car). In time, the farmer will wish to replace his old variety and buy the new one.