Food sovereignty in Africa | Small-scale farmers opposed to proposed plant protection treaty







Photo courtesy of AFSA


Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa





Moderator’s Note:  We just received this press release from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa,
dated July 2 2015. We are reposting  at the request of the activists  concerned with the problems of a proposed African regional framework for the protection of plant varieties. Because of the significance of this issue for the future prospects of food self-sufficiency and autonomy in the African countries, we call on our readers to support the work of AFSA, the grassroots alternative to the Gates Foundation and its  ‘Alliance for a Green
Revolution in Africa’ (AGRA); see our post of October 8, 2010.





AFSA Calls On African
Governments at Arusha Meeting to Shun Protocol





AGREEEMENT SEEN AS UNDERMINING SOVEREIGNTY & FARMERS’ RIGHTS
TO SEED





AFSA Press Release | Arusha, Tanzania | 2 July 2015





Nineteen African
nations, members of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO),
began deliberating on the highly contentious draft ARIPO Plant Variety
Protection (PVP) Protocol on Monday, 29th June in Arusha, Tanzania. Many of
these nations are least
developed countries, the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the world.





If adopted, the
Protocol will establish a centralised plant variety protection (PVP) regime
modeled on the heavily criticised 1991 Act of the International Union for the
Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 1991). Such a PVP regime will vest
enormous decision-making powers in the ARIPO PVP Office (which has no
experience in PVP matters), and totally undermine the sovereignty of member
states to regulate plant breeder’s rights. Crucially, the Protocol will nullify
the rights of farmers to freely save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed and
other propagating material. This practice is the backbone of agricultural
systems in Africa, providing food and nutrition for hundreds of millions of
Africans on the continent.







AFSA has been
extremely vocal in challenging the legitimacy and credibility of the process
leading to the development of the Draft Protocol as well as the Protocol
itself. A particular concern is that the whole process of development of the
Draft Protocol has been driven and influenced by the interests of foreign
entities such as the UPOV Secretariat, the EU Community Plant Variety Office
(CPVO), and the seed industry. These players are present at the current
on-going deliberations on the Draft Protocol.





AFSA’s request to
participate as observers in the meeting was pointedly snubbed. This despite
AFSA being a pan-African platform comprising of civil society networks and
farmer organisations working towards food sovereignty in Africa, and
representing millions of small-scale farmers.





These concerns have
stimulated fierce debate among delegates and tensions are high. Several
countries are pushing for major changes to articles of the Draft Protocol that
relinquish national sovereignty and vests the ARIPO office with  extensive
draconian powers. They are questioning the credibility of the adoption of the
Draft Protocol, in the absence of draft regulations that are linked to the
Draft Protocol. These countries are also demanding that the adoption of the
Protocol be deferred until member states have consulted widely at country
levels.





Disappointingly Kenya,
Ghana and Tanzania are supporting the agenda of foreign entities (UPOV and the
EU CPVO) and are extremely hostile to any proposed changes being made to the Protocol,
with Tanzania, the host nation, exercising undue pressure on member states.





AFSA urges Kenya,
Ghana and Tanzania to drop its opposition to revising the Draft Protocol as it
lacks legitimacy. AFSA also urges all ARIPO member states to urgently support
calls to revise the Protocol to uphold the sovereignty of member states and
promote farmers’ rights. The all important farmers’ rights remain heavily
compromised with the draft revision text making no mention the rights of
farmers to freely save, exchange, sow and sell farm saved seed of protected
varieties. This has to change.





AFSA strongly urges
member states and the Ministers who will attend the Diplomatic Conference on
Monday, not to adopt the Protocol. The lack of involvement of smallholder
farmer groups and civil society in the development of the legal framework, the current
compromised deliberations, as well as the Diplomatic Conference, are a huge
global concern.







AFSA further strongly
urges member states and the Ministers who will attend the Diplomatic Conference
on Monday (6th July) to reconsider and overhaul the Protocol  in its
entirety.  A credible process must be initiated to undertake
evidence-based discussions with all relevant stakeholders in particular with
smallholder farmers with regard to appropriate legal systems for breeders’ and
farmers’ rights as well as the upholding of national sovereignty and interests.





Contact:     Bernard Guri, Chair of AFSA Board


                  Email: guribern@gmail.com





The source for this
Press Release:





1. ARIPO Shuns African
Farmers over PVP Protocol Abolishing Farmers’ Rights to Seeds


http://afsafrica.org/aripo-shuns-african-farmers-over-pvp-protocol-abolishing-farmers-rights-to-seeds/ 

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