Stakeholders in the Nigeria food industry have raised the alarm on the danger of the Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Bill currently awaiting President Muhammadu Buhari’s assent, saying if signed into law, will spell disaster for agriculture and farming systems.
The Stakeholders during a Food Policy Dialogue organised recently by Health of Mother Earth Foundation, (HOMEF) in Abuja, the stakeholders raised concern that once in place, farmers will be criminalised if they duplicate or share seeds registered under this law.
Speaking during the summit, the Director, HOMEF, Dr Nnimmo Bassey, said the proponents of the bill tout the roaring success of UPOV and often cite Vietnam as a country where UPOV brought about dramatic increases in farmers’s productivity.
He said a UPOV paper published in 2017 claimed that there were annual yield increases in rice, maize and sweet potato attributable to developments in plant-breeding activities to the tune of 1.7%, 2.1%, and 3.1%, in the 10 years after Vietnam became a member of UPOV. But that recent study has now revealed that not a single application for plant variety protection (PVP) had been filed with Vietnam’s Plant Variety Protection Office (PVPO) for sweet potatoes, adding that high yields have also been recorded for cassava without any application for plant variety protection.
Pointing out some faults with the bill, Bassey said although the proponents of the bill insist that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will not creep into the food system as part of the new plants varieties, but that there are some worrisome provisions in it.
Saying clause 9 establishes a PVP Advisory Committee which includes known GMO promoters such as the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) and the Biosafety Regulatory Agency, NBMA. He said further that the bill makes no space for civil society representation and none for smallholder farmers except where it mentions the registered farmers association. Saying rather ‘a’ than suggests that the registered farmers’ association is already known to the drafters of this Bill.
“The PVP bill Clause 13 (2) says the grant of the breeder’s right shall not be subject to any further or different conditions. In other words, this act locks breeders rights in concrete. It could preclude the development of appropriate laws and policies to decriminalise farmer’s seed systems and farmer’s rights and is grossly inequitable. It also restricts Nigerian farmer’s rights more heavily than the laws of Brazil, Argentina, China, South Africa, etc.
