Second Press Statement on the Plant Breeders’ Rights Bill
18 July 2024
Chronology of the development of the PBR Bill (2024) – ZAAB’s perspective.
ZAAB members have been following the developments in Zambia’s Seed and Plant Variety Protection laws since 2010. By 2020, we were aware that the two laws governing seed in Zambia were being amended as follows:
- Amendments to the Plant Variety and Seeds Act (amended 1995) that began in 2018 to align with the COMESA Seed Trade Harmonisation Regulations. The Act and its regulations focus on production, certification and marketing of seed.
- Amendments to the Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) Act (2007) to align with the UPOV1991 standards in order for Zambia to become a member. The PBR Act is concerned with providing plant breeders with exclusive rights to varieties they develop, whilst limiting others’ use rights to these varieties.
Between 2021 and 2023, ZAAB made at least 3 submissions to the Ministry of Agriculture though the Permanent Secretary’s Office and to the Seed Control and Certification Institute (SCCI) on why a country like Zambia should not align its laws with the UPOV standards of 1991, let alone join the Union. Instead, ZAAB continued to make recommendations for Zambia to protect farmers fundamental Rights, as committed to through the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).
On 15th April 2024, ZAAB received an invitation from the SCCI to attend what was termed the first stakeholder consultation on the draft PBR Bill of 2024 on 18th April 2024, at Sandy’s Creations. This invitation was accompanied by the draft bill, which we were receiving for the first time giving Zambian stakeholders less than 72 hours to critically analyse the bill they would be reviewing.
On 18th April, ZAAB attended the ‘consultations’ and expressed concerns over the reason given for the proposed amendments to the law, which was to enable Zambia join UPOV – by aligning our laws to 1991 standards of the Union. However, this debate was curtailed by the SCCI before a consensus was reached.
On 19th April, ZAAB held a press briefing to (once again) denounce Zambia’s intention to join UPOV, and strongly object to the undue influence of the UPOV Secretariat in drafting the language and even specific articles of Zambia’s new Bill. The fact that a sovereign law was being amended for the sole purpose of furthering outside, and private interests above national interests, particularly over farmers’ rights was unacceptable.
On 17th May 2024, ZAAB and CTDT were invited to a meeting by the SCCI to look at the ‘controversial clauses’ in the draft bill, so that we could come to a common understanding. In this meeting, SCCI and ZAAB agreed that Article 8 on exemptions would be reinstated as stated in the current Act of 2007, and that Article 12 on National Interest would be expanded to include aspects on environmental protection and Farmers’ Rights protection. This was agreed with SCCI, and mis-represented in the facts by Ms. Tryness Tembo in the Daily Mail article on Friday 12th July, entitled “Government urges farmers to back new plant law”. ZAAB did NOT agree to “amend (article 8) to benefit both farmers and breeders”.
Between May and June, ZAAB, CTDT and SCCI have participated in 3 other stakeholder meetings together to review the Bill, where we have presented our concerns while SCCI have presented their rationale for the proposed changes to the law.
Note that in all these meetings, SCCI have never presented the ACTUAL changes/ amendments to the law, such as a side by side comparison between the current act and the proposed amendments.
Where we are today.
The SCCI is ready to start the provincial/ district consultations for the PBR Bill 2024. A few questions remain unanswered for many stakeholders. These include but are not limited to:
- What exactly has changed in the proposed law? And thus, what are stakeholders being asked to approve/ comment on? In their communications, SCCI have never shared the two documents together, that is the Bill and the current Act. Dr, Richard Chanda’s response to this question was that because they are proposing to repeal the law, this was not a requirement. It would be a requirement if the law was being amended. Isn’t this the very reason why we must question what we are committing ourselves to, what the intentions are?
- SCCI have a built strong case on the benefits to the breeders and commercial seed sector, while the benefits to the farmer, consumers and to the country are significantly neglected and even missing from early stakeholder engagements. What are the implications on farmers’ rights, ensuring diversity for resilience, and the local seed industry?
- ZAAB managed to acquire the April version of the Bill where the SCCI claim they have included the provisions agreed in our meeting during the May 17th meeting. This version shows that article 8 has some provisions reinstated (not fully), while article 12 on national interest remains as it was in the original version of the Bill. What does this mean for stakeholder submissions and seed sovereignty in Zambia?
- SCCI have amended the preamble to now state that the law is being repealed to align it with international best practices (supposedly now not to join UPOV) but these so called best practices, as SCCI argues, are UPOV standards. We contend that a law based on the UPOV standards of 1991 is not a good law for Zambian farmers – whether we join UPOV or not. The standards do not benefit the needs of Zambian farmers, and development of our own resilience seed and agriculture context and economy.
- This rationale from SCCI blatantly ignores the global recognition that all countries agricultural systems are different (not to mention equally diverse social-economic and food security contexts), and thus countries need to formulate sui generis seed legislation best suited to the specific country needs. This is even recognised by the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) TRIPS agreement. The whole process in fact decries the basic principles of good policy formulation – in which the repeal and replacement of national laws should arise from the Nation, the demands and needs of the primary stakeholders affected by such laws – i.e farmers in Zambia, not Multinational seed companies, nor their lobby groups.
With all these questions unanswered, here is why we are opposed to an UPOV standards-based law:
- The new Bill based on UPOV 1991 standards is completely an ill-suited PVP model for the Zambian context. The standards do not fit nor support Zambia’s diverse food and farming systems. They undermine the possibility of addressing our diverse development needs by serving multinational over local breeders’ and farmers’ interests, and limiting capacity to adapt to climate change. This Bill, if enacted into law will:
- Pause a threat to Zambia’s diverse agrobiodiversity
- Lead to increase in the price of seeds and corporate capture of our seed, and therefore, food system.
- Will contravene Zambia’s obligations under international and regional treaties and frameworks that it has adopted or ratified. These require protection of agrobiodiversity and Farmers’ Rights, such as the ITPGRFA, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Living in Rural Areas (UNDROP).
- On the other hand, Zambia’s current PBR Act makes important provisions for flexibilities relevant to farmer seed systems, such as allowing breeders and farmers to use protected varieties for further variety development, as well as other exemptions for non-commercial purposes. UPOV1991 makes these practices illegal, including farmers gathering seed from protected varieties during their harvest for saving and replanting. Farmers are also not allowed to sell the seed they harvest from their crop. In some countries, farmers have been prevented from saving or exchanging seed even non-commercially. This poses a critical danger to food security and protecting biodiversity in the context of climate change.
Our Recommendations
- Abandon efforts to pass repeal and adoption of the Proposed new PBR Bill to align with and attempt to officially join UPOV. The current PBR Act is already in line with the TRIPS Agreement and adequately protects plant breeders’ rights and so no further revisions in line with UPOV should be made.
- Facilitate an open and transparent national discussion on Farmers’ Rights. Such open engagement with stakeholders from the farmer and formal seed and agricultural sectors, civil society, and relevant ministries must also be undertaken before any amendment to seed legislation takes place and order to shape comprehensive new guiding principles for Zambia’s seed systems.
- Develop and adopt a comprehensive and cohesive legal framework to fully implement Zambia’s obligations of the ITPGRFA and specifically Farmers Rights. This should include developing a flourishing national seed sector based on farmer and diverse seed appropriate for varied local agroecological conditions.
Only through holistic governance of the food system in its entirety, including seed, will major complex challenges of rural livelihoods, malnutrition, health and sustainable agriculture productivity be addressed.
END.
Contact:
Ms. Mutinta Nketani, ZAAB National Coordinator
Email: coordinator@zambianagroecology.org
Mr. Vladimir Chilinya, ZAAB Chair
Email:vladimir@fian.org.zm