W1b.farmers.en

Committee : WIPO 1

Question : How to ensure the independence of farmers face to seed companies?

Chair: Benjamin Phillips

Introduction

About 9000 years ago, man became sedentary and learned how to domesticate animals and plants. This allowed him to ensure himself daily meals as well as the survival of his community. For centuries farmers have kept seeds from their harvest for the next season, seeds we nickname "farm seeds". This ancient practice has come to an end today.

Most modern industries rely and depend on agriculture, whether it’s breeding or the sale of insulation or manufacture of glue, lots of raw materials are grown in our fields. Of all the earth's surface (about 51 billion hectares), the cultivated surface represents 5 billion ha (one third of the surface of seas estimated at 15 billion ha), made of: 3.4 billion ha of pasture land, 1.4 billion ha of cropland and 140 million hectares in various plantations (orchards, palm trees, herbs, tea, coffee ...). The primary sector is the fundamental pillar on which our society’s harvest depends (for example, the French Revolution would never have happened if the 1789 harvest would have been abundant).

After World War II, countries around the world rebuilt and developed themselves and population increased. To feed all these hungry mouths, agriculture was forced to increase its production, bringing the world of agriculture to the green revolution (one produces more, faster and better using fertilizers and GMOs). With time, we classified the best plant varieties and genetically modified them to be more resistant, grow faster and produce more grains.

Manufacturers who create "super-seeds" file patents to provide income and repay their research. However, the problem lies here: once the seeds are purchased, farmers replant these seeds; which, in the eyes of seed companies, is theft. Thus, the law condemning replanting seeds from crops was adopted, creating a huge wave of protest among both farmers and citizens worldwide.

During these three days of debate, we will find a compromise between the multinational seed companies and farmers and a solution to enable them to guarantee their independence.

Key Terms

WIPO : The World Intellectual Property Organization (OMPI in French) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. Its official mission is to stimulate creativity and economic development by promoting an international IP system, including by promoting cooperation among States. It is headquartered in Geneva (Switzerland) and is the organization where FerMUN debates will be held.

With a workforce of 950 people from more than 100 countries, WIPO has 185 member states and administers 24 international treaties.

Intellectual property (IP) : IP is the area comprising all the exclusive rights to intellectual creations. It has two branches:

literary and artistic property, which applies to works of the mind ; consists of copyright and neighboring rights;
Industrial Property which includes, firstly, utility designs, such as patent and plant breeders' rights or rather a right to plant variety rights, and, secondly, distinctive signs, including trademark, domain name and origin.

Farmer : A farmer is a person who carries out the cultivation of land or breeding of animals for productions. Farmers usually have their own land or own animals. They may, depending on the size of its land, employ workers permanently or seasonally.

If they do not own the land they operate, it is said that they inhabit leased land.

Seed companies: A seed company’s main purpose is the research and development of seeds for the production of plants. Companies producing seeds can be of of very variable sizes from associations, small and medium enterprises to large international groups.

Some work on a large number of species and provide farmers with seeds, others are specialized in certain species and distributes their seeds to amateur gardeners. The biggest seed companies today are: Monsanto (USA), Pioneer industries (USA), Syngenta (CH), Limagrain (FR) and Vilmorin (FR).

GMO: A genetically modified organism (GMO) is a living organism whose genetic material has been modified through human intervention. Genetic engineering can change organisms by transgenesis, in other words, the insertion into the genome of one or more new genes. A "transgenic organism" is a term for organisms that contain genes in their genome and is always a genetically modified organism: the reverse is not always true.

Green revolution : The Green Revolution is the transformation of agriculture in developing countries and the least developed countries, mainly based on the intensification and use of a variety of high-potential seeds.

The term "Green Revolution" refers to the technological leap achieved in agriculture during the years 1960-1990, following a political and industrial decision, supported by scientific and technical progress in chemistry and mechanised gear. It was also made possible by the development of the seed companies that developed new high-yielding varieties (often hybrids), especially cereals (wheat and rice), through plant breeding. The use of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, mechanization and irrigation also contributed to the Green Revolution.

Semens : In agriculture, the semen is a seed selected to be sown.

Farm semens : Seeds from the previous harvest destined to be sown following season.

Biopiracy : The illegitimate appropriation of biodiversity resources and traditional indigenous knowledge that can be associated to this.

Plant variety certificate (PVC) : This is the certificate of property that a seed company gets for a protected variety under the Plant Variety Protection System.

The UOPV 91: The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, abbreviated UPOV is an intergovernmental organization created in Paris in a "diplomatic conference" on 2 December 1961, at the initiative of France and large seed companies , leading to an "international Convention for the protection of plant Varieties."

A bit of history…

The beginning of genetic modification:

If there is one thing to be remembered from the evolution of species is that the strongest always wins. By harvesting their plants on a field with weather features that are their own, farmers from the past have, unknowingly, helped the crops to modify their genes. Indeed, over time, plants have adapted to make the most of the ground on which they are planted, to resist better against the insects in the region. Thus, thousands of varieties of the same species have emerged.

The first genetic manipulation took place in 1972 when the American biochemist Paul Berg, created the first genetically modified DNA. Soon after, other biologists, amazed by the discovery, undertook their own experiments. From 1973 to today, genetical science has managed to create: hydrocarbon-eating bacteria, human insulin-producing mice, trouts with accelerated growth, ... .

We have even managed to create fluorescent fish or tobacco plants that create human hemoglobins. This technology was quickly applied to the food industry. The first genetically modified plants were developed to be herbicide-resistant. Today corn, soybean, cotton, canola, sugar beet or even flax are genetically modified to resist herbicides. Food such as oil, flour, etc. that come from raw modified materials, are also on the market.

GMOs were first intended to increase the resistance of plants, their production and quality. Some GMOs help increase the number of crops. With these changes, we avoid the misuse of pesticides and insecticides. In addition, they require less attention, which reduces the operation of processing the crops, consequently saving fuel and helping to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

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The post-war development of agriculture:

After the trauma of the Second World War, a mass reconstruction took place and agriculture was relaunched. Since 1945, the agricultural sector has seen considerable decrease of farmers with the development of modern farms run by few, doing different activities such as farming, crop growing and breeding. These farmers apply the new notion of polyculture.

Countries recover from the big period of depression and even a period of "baby boom" takes place. More births force farmers to increase their production. We innovate everywhere, develop new cultivation techniques, we make colossal research thanks to the technology created by the Second World War. Despite all the efforts there still hungry mouths to feed. So we were forced to select species that are naturally more resistant and genetically modify them if necessary. We called this innovation the "green revolution". It has enabled European countries to become independent of US assistance and become self sufficient.

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Today, we hardly count more than a million farmers in France, representing only 4% of the workforce, compared to 10 million in 1945. No other economic sector encountered such a significant decline. This is directly related to the green revolution, the mechanization of the countryside and the use of synthetic fertilizers in agriculture which led to a significant increase of productivity.

Agricultural modernization has changed the composition of the average village, causing a significant migration and depopulation of the countryside. Today, three quarters of the population live in cities. Small families owning farms give way to much larger farms, while subsistence agriculture is replaced by a modernized agriculture (industrial agriculture) linked to the food industry. Some, however, are exploring other ways in organic agriculture related to rural tourism.

Today

« In a world with limited resources and growing population, agricultural innovation is essential to increase productivity and ensure food security in the world. But research and development in agriculture is an activity both risky and expensive.

If in the past, the agricultural research and development was financed mainly by public funds, it is mainly the private sector that pays for it globally today, particularly in agricultural biotechnology. A recent report prepared at the request of CropLife International and EuropaBio, the 10 largest companies in the sector spend no less than 1.69 billion euros a year (7.5% of revenues) in setting Development of new products. In this context, intellectual property rights plays a key role in enabling companies to attract investors and generate sufficient profits to cover the cost of investments in new research and development activities. » Catherine Jewell, WIPO magazine.

To be commercialised, seeds must be registered in the official catalog of varieties ; there, we write down their variety, name, properties and their owners. Thanks to this list, we can consider that more than 6000 seeds listed belong to 5 seed multinationals. To be added to the list, the plant (in Europe) has to go through GEVES, an organization that monitors the plants to rate their characteristics. Thus, individuals of a species in the catalog are all identical.

The European Commission says that thanks to this list, the European seeds are recognized as the best in the world (from a quality point of view) and that passed laws respect farmer rights. Yet the laws of different countries prohibit the sale or exchange of farm seeds since they are not included in the catalog (because they do not meet the selection criteria).

To protect their research, multinational file patents on the seeds they have developed. This means that a farmer who purchases these seeds has no right to replant or resell them. A farmer who would replant purchased seed has two choices: either he declares it and pays royalties (taxes) to the owner of the seeds, or does not declare it and is considered to be committing fraud. Thus we regularly assist to legal prosecution against farmers especially among those who harvest potatoes (the torn plant naturally leaves bulbs in the ground which germinate to produce new plants).

To deal with the problem, many seed companies have developed hybrid or F1 varieties of plants which grow very fast, with high yield that are sterile. 95% of the plants listed in the catalog are sterile; which means that individuals have to buy seeds every year. This benefits to the industry that earns more than 769 million euros each year thanks to this technique.

All these rules and all these laws greatly displease the farmers and a huge wave of protests took place.

On the one hand, using a handful of varieties, biodiversity is dying and fauna disappears. Moreover, we criticizes the seed companies for creating this monoculture. An estimated 75% of different kinds of varieties have disappeared from the planet. To confront this depopulation of the plethora of varieties, countries worldwide have authorized the construction of a intercontinental seed bank. It was placed in Svalbard, a small isolated island in the Arctic Circle. The global seed vault will store the seeds for a period of about 500 years.

Image: The entrance of the Global Seed Vault

Then there are farmers who, following the various abuses and scandals towards seeds, decide to use only the saved seeds (which is legal) but also share the seeds of crops with others (illegal if the variety is not in the catalog). Association Kokopelli was created with the aim of preserving food biodiversity by distributing vegetable and cereal seeds.

One of the representatives of this fight, Vandana Shiva, is fighting for a healthy agriculture and for the respect of farmers rights.

She qualifies international seed companies as " industries of death science."

Some elected officials are afraid for the food security in their country ; indeed, if the 4 seed companies decide to suddenly raise the price of hybrids, the world would be forced to buy GMOs from seed companies. Moreover, these companies slowly appropriates themselves (with the help of patents) different varieties of plants. What they do is they announce that they file patents for newly discovered genes and therefore all plant species where the gene is also found belongs to them. This main argument is what brutaly opposes on one side the multinationals and the farmers on the other.

Baptiste Gatouillat, a farmer practicing polyculture in the Aube, announces: "Of course we do not have to file patents for everything. If patenting attacks the gene itself, then there is a problem. But in the case of a variety of seeds from a cross, the patent is legitimate" he said, recalling that "farmers remain masters of their operation. The decision to use patented seeds or farmer seeds up to them alone. " But for how much longer ? ( "Guerre des graines » documentary Stenka Quillet).

The most affected countries (sources grain.org)

AFRICA

Africa, the only continent with Asia growing economically at this time, now has the attention of foreign governments. These are encouraging new public-private partnerships and development programs to privatize seed markets. Foreign seed companies and private foundations are working to help African countries review their laws to make the trade and investment "fair" and "responsible", that is to say favorable to the interests of companies. It is in this context that the peasants, men and women, and groups of civil society in Africa are fighting day to day, for new seed legislations.

-Ghana: In Ghana, students and unions have joined the small farmer organizations to mobilize against a bill on the rights of breeders (and protection of plant varieties). Ths bill, currently before Parliament, seeks to establish a national seed laws based on UPOV 91. As has been the case in many countries, the law is used to introduce legal restrictions, applicable to the use of seeds made by farmers and going well beyond the current, already very restrictive, dispositions of the UPOV 91. The bill states, for example, that "in the absence of evidence to the contrary", breeders can be considered holders of a given variety; This opens the way to biopiracy and confiscation of seeds. Furthermore, according to the bill, farmers making use of a protected variety - in reproducing the species and exchanging it with neighbors, for example - are liable to a sentence of up to 2000 "penalty units" and two years imprisonment.

-Mali: There are not organizations such as UPOV, that work directly for the seed industry, that advocate a strengthening of intellectual property rights worldwide. These organisations are indeed supported by like-minded institutions, like the World Bank. In 2008, under the Agricultural Productivity Programme in West Africa, the World Bank granted Mali 50 million CFA francs (76,000€) to develop and to "protect" fifty varieties of crops. The aim was to encourage peasants not to use traditional seeds, considered "backward" and "unproductive", while encouraging the selection and production of improved seeds. The idea is to protect the seed and to pay royalties to the Malian public research system.

But in a country where the vast majority of farmers are peasants who use local seed and animal varieties, such initiatives on behalf of the World Bank are unwelcome. If, in 2012, Mali could of claimed to have VOC on fifty cultures, their purpose was not clear. The Malian government has to pay an annual sum of 16.5 million CFA francs (25,000€) to retain ownership of these seeds. This is problematic because the Malian institutions hardly have any revenue from these crops. On one hand, the number of companies interested in breeding and seed marketing was insufficient. On the other, most farmers do not want to pay high prices for seeds that require a lot of care, as is the case of hybrids, which are increasingly unsuitable for their small farms, which require few inputs. In addition, it should be noted that in some cases the plant variety protection titles can be considered direct biopiracy since the crops are clearly of peasant varieties still bearing local names (VOCs have been granted although distinctness, uniformity and stability that must fulfill the varieties were not fully respected).

Since the titles of ownership of plant variety are valid in all 16 member states of AIPO (African Intellectual Property Organization), farmers not only in Mali but in the whole region, may no longer be allowed to sell or exchange the seeds of these farmers' varieties. If they can still reproduce these seeds in their fields, they can not use them on their farms. With the accession of AIPO to UPOV in 2014, their situation could even worsen.

At the same time in the country, many different groups work to strengthen industrial seed systems, particularly by promoting laws allowing greater participation of private companies in different aspects of the production and marketing of seeds. These actions are encouraged by programs such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, itself supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Meanwhile, Malian producers encounter other problems. Instead of sowing okra, onion, cucumber, cabbage or eggplant, for which they can only find a few hybrid varieties, they diversify the types of crops they need on their small farms. By collaborating with each other as part of local networks, they developed new varieties and recovered ancient varieties of onions, lettuce and autochthonous varieties of vegetables, in addition to local millets and sorghums.

New laws on the marketing of seed in Africa: the case of COMESA.

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) encompasses 20 countries, from Ethiopia to South Africa. Under the COMESA Treaty, all Member States must comply to common regulations on seed marketing. Developed in 2013, these regulations, if adopted, would allow companies to certify their seeds in a Member State and automatically obtain the right to market them in all COMESA Member States. These rules are particularly useful for the seed industry because they facilitate the marketing of seeds in the African territory, removing all national rules. A common catalog, listing the varieties authorized for all countries, will be developed, and all countries will adopt the same certification system. The COMESA seed law does not provide any measures to promote local varieties of farmer seeds.

COMESA also approved draft guidelines on GMOs, thus circumventing national regulations on GMOs in the area of trade, agriculture and food aid. As pointed out by farmers' organizations, these guidelines do not emanate from COMESA member states, but from a policy initiative in the field of biotechnology, funded by the US government. Experts trained by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) dominated the drafting, while the voices of farmers and civil society groups were not heard. In addition, as with seed marketing regulations, policies on GMOs apply immediately to all COMESA Member States, which weakens the ability of civil society groups to combat these Laws through their national governments, many of which currently have relatively strict rules that have so far been able to protect Africa from GMOs.

-Niger : Purple Galmi is a very popular variety of onion, which takes its name from a village in the southwest of the country. It is not only popular in Niger but throughout all of West Africa. Since its arrival in Egypt several centuries ago, this red-purplish colored onion is highly valued because of its pungent taste and excellent storage capacity: it can be stored in the heat for several months without deteriorating. In the 90s, the purple Galmi market has rapidly grown in importance, even beyond the borders of the local economy: it became Niger’s second exported product; after uranium; making the country the largest exporter of onions in the region. A major problem would arise if someone were to claim ownership of this variety. And that is precisely what has happened.

After gaining fame in farmers' fields, the onion was the subject of new selections by public researchers in the 60s and in the 90s by the Senegalese private seed company Tropicasem, owned by a french group called Technisem. Its goal at the time was to convert the onion into a product for exportation only. Ultimately, the company filed in a PVC with the African Intellectual Property Organization (AIPO), claiming ownership of this popular variety. They obtained exclusive property rights in all member States of AIPO. Moreover, thanks to an FAO initiative that led to the creation of a common catalog for seed trade in West Africa, Tropicasem obtained the exclusive marketing of onions in nine different countries. When Nigerien farmers learned that a private company had claimed exclusive rights over their onion, outraged, they asked the government to act on their behalf to face this case of biopiracy. In the conflict that followed, AIPO cancelled property rights on Galmi purple, but kept the name “purple Damani". The onion growers therefore won against a company seeking to create a monopoly on one of their most important crops.

At the same time, producers and traders of the large-scale commercial sector, also affected, remained concerned about the ways in which they could protect "their" onion and filed a request for geographical indications (GIs), another form of intellectual property, similar to a trademark except that it is related to the production site. This means that, although the purple Galmi is now cultivated throughout the West African region, only the farmers of the Galmi region can use that name for their sales. So far, this has not affected the farmers because the law is not strictly enforced and big Galmi onion farmers do not seek to enforce "their" GI’s in the surrounding villages. But what would happen if they chose to do so? Since 2004, small farmers have organized debates to discuss these issues. Thus, farmers in Niger, but also from Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Togo, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast and Senegal meet to discuss alternative work arrangements for the future in order to respect the rights available to all farmers on their crops without preventing others from using their seeds.

When the African regional organizations encourage the patenting of seeds instead of wasting lobbying work for each African country individually, the food industry has lobbied the regional organisations to vote laws that would be applicable to several countries at the same time. Currently, two bills restricting the rights of farmers over seeds are being considered in two regions of Africa. The first, entitled "SADC Protocol" would affect 15 countries in the Development Community of Southern Africa (SADC). The second is a law of ARIPO on the Protection of Plant Varieties, which would apply to 18 English-speaking members of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO). In West Africa, 17, mostly french speaking, member countries of the African Intellectual Property Organization (AIPO) already have a law on plant variety protection, since 2006, based on the UPOV 91.

AMERICA

Latin America is most likely the region where the social mobilizations against seed laws that criminalize farmer seeds are the most dynamic. Country after country, the protest intensifies to block what is inevitably identified as "Monsanto Laws" and promote farmers' seeds. As in Venezuela, these efforts sometimes become legal counter-offensives (alternative legislation). In any case, the question of seeds is never overlooked. These struggles are part of a growing resistance to defend the territory and food sovereignty against the onslaught of the food businesses and governments who support their program.

In North America, where industrial agriculture is the norm, farmers' organizations and social movements are trying to prevent a strengthening of the legislations imposing the privatization of seeds and organise local food systems that supports farmer seeds.

-Brazil : After a decade of struggles for access to land and food sovereignty, the Brazilian government adopted in 2012 the Public Policy agroecology and organic production, recognizing farmers' seeds. In addition, since 2013, a national program for public purchasing provides an important outlet for farmers who grow their own seeds. Although it is not legal in Brazil to sell non-certified seed, through this program, the government buys seed directly from farmers and provides them for other farmers for free, bypassing the market.

Farmers in Brazil protest against the GMO corn seed and against the "Terminator" seeds. These seeds (genetically modified) become sterile after the first germination, forcing farmers to buy every season. However a UN moratorium has banned the seeds in the name of biodiversity.

Through this program, the biggest farmers' organizations of the country have developed their own system. Not only do these organizations help farming families select their seeds to use and develop houses of peasant seeds, they have also developed larger programs that provide seeds to hundreds of thousands of families. More than 7 000 tonnes of maize seed, fodder beans and crops grown by over 2000 farmer members of a single movement, in 2013, 800 tons of additional black bean seed were sent to Venezuela. These measures represent a major step forward towards the protection of farmers' seeds that farmers need; but the defense of these favorable regulations to farmers is a constant struggle. For example, the US government complained that the procurement program was against WTO rules because it was subsidizing Brazilian farmers.

Brazilian farmers, men and women also struggle against GMOs and toxic agricultural inputs. Brazil is the second largest producer of GMOs, with 40.3 million hectares planted with GM crops in 2013. In October 2013, 5,000 Brazilians occupied a seed production plant owned by Monsanto in the state of Pernambuco northeast of Brazil. They replaced the GM maize varieties by farmers' seeds. Consequently, a number of farmers were persecuted and access to the Monsanto factories is prohibited throughout Brazil. Brazilian farmers are also struggling against a bill that would end the "Terminator" moratorium.

-Mexico: One of the most important bills which Mexican peasants are facing is the one that will introduce GMOs in maize fields. Corn is by far the most important crop for Mexicans, not only because it occupies a special place in their diet, but also because it plays a central role in the culture and the lives of rural populations and indigenous. Although Mexico has been presented as the good student of the Green Revolution, farmers continue to use their indigenous seeds for 80% of the grown corn in the country. And this despite the twenty years of implementation of the free trade agreement with North America which seeks to impose a model of industrial agriculture and privatize resources.

Since 1999, a moratorium has blocked any permit seeking to plant GMOs in the country. However, a biosafety legislation was passed in 2005, giving legitimacy to GMOs by introducing a series of bureaucratic procedures that the companies who want to plant GM crops for commercial purposes must comply. Known as the "Monsanto law", it was followed by a federal law on the production, certification and marketing of seeds in 2007 which, in effect, criminalized the exchange of native seeds; followed by a presidential decree which put an end to the moratorium and announced that permits would be issued again from 2009. Monsanto and Dow multinational companies have since received 155 permits to plant experimental crops of maize in Mexico.

Mexicans are fighting on all fronts to defend their corn. Since it was found that imports from the United States have already contaminated the native Mexican corn in 2001, peasant communities have been very careful to seed used and their origin. They avoid contamination by GMO varieties carefully, fearing they are introduced through government programs on seeds. It is these programs that have pushed farmers to share their indigenous seeds against commercial hybrid seeds. This resulted in a moratorium, still in effect today. When companies have announced plans to plant GMOs commercially oriented, broad mobilization followed. Alliances are created between peasant communities, indigenous peoples, trade unions, academics, and other urban groups to warn the public of the threat of contamination of maize in its place of origin. Farmers staged a hunger strike in the spring of 2012. Then, after 2013, a coalition of peasant organizations and their allies filed a complaint. The trial that followed ended the commercial crops of GM maize, at least for now. The areas that companies wanted to grow are equivalent to the area of Salvador (ie 21,041 sq km).

Indigenous and peasant populations have decided to defend their corn by Community agreements at meetings which organize collective land ownership. This is heritage from the land reform that took place during the decades following the Mexican Revolution. The Mexican Constitution recognizes the validity of these agreements to protect the land and resources of 31,000 collective landholdings in Mexico. Not only can these Community agreements become a legal instrument in the future, but they also give rise to discussions and organizations that strengthen the defense of local farmer seeds, inseparable from the life of people, their knowledge and their cultures. A lawsuit filed against the Mexican state by the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (2012-2014) is the last step of the Mexican mobilization to defend the seeds.

-United States of America: The US legal system allows to assert intellectual property rights over seeds using different instruments, patents are the most used. A seed can be subject to different patents, plant variety certificates and exclusive licensing, and can even be accumulated. Today, new most popular varieties are even covered through branding. And as if that was not enough to secure the pensions of monopoly, there are also new schemes, such as "clubs", in which products such as apples can not be grown by club members; the market and the prices are therefore strictly controlled. In such a situation, it is not surprising that peasants and farmers are intimidated and only buy industrial seeds, out of fear of being convicted for violating the law. This problem does not only arise for peasants but also for breeders, researchers and seed organizations that want to continue working on seeds.

When buying seeds, the farmer has to sign a long contract known as "Technology Usage Agreement". The contract prohibits farmers from saving seeds and gives companies the power to consult the records of the farmer held by a third party such as the United States government. In 2003, Monsanto employed 75 agricultural detectives with a budget of ten million dollars for the unique purpose of suing farmers for patent infringement. In December 2012, 142 trials for alleged patent infringement had been filed against 410 farmers and 56 small businesses in 27 states. In late 2012, Monsanto had received more than $ 23.5 million compensation from these lawsuits against farmers and agricultural businesses.

But Monsanto is not the only company using these tactics. DuPont Pioneers, the second global seed company, employed at least 45 agricultural detectives in 2012 to examine the plantations registers and purchases of Canadian farmers and to submit samples of their fields for genetic analysis. DuPont expanded its operations in the US in 2013 and employs about 35 detectives, many of which are former police officers. The United States, with their restrictive laws and the aggressive behavior of large companies, are quickly becoming a police state in the orwellian style of "Big Brother is watching you", controlling everything farmers do with their seeds.

In terms of marketing laws, the United States is an exception. The seed does not need to be certified to be sold, as is the case in most other countries. Consequently, seeds for small businesses or initiatives can develop non-hybrid varieties despite the enormous concentration of the industry serving the food industry in the United States. But given the aggressiveness of the protection of intellectual property in the US, it is not easy to distribute these seeds or to keep them for reuse and exchange, without the risk that they are patented by others. In response to this situation, license agreements have been created: they define the terms of the marketing of seeds, clearly explaining that the seeds can not be declared private property and exclude others.

ASIA

Asia was highly transformed by the Green Revolution, which, from the 60s to 80s, replaced traditional seeds by high yielding varieties for many cultures. Since the 90s, the area became the target of GM seed producers from the west, as well as Chinese rice hybrid distributors seeking to control the supply of seeds.

These same governments, companies and foundations that promote these modified seeds are pressuring the region to make changes to seed legislation. For Asian countries, this would mean the adoption of patents and of protection laws on plant varieties, applicable to seed and seed certification schemes. However, these attempts meet a rather strong resistance. Consequently, few Asian countries are UPOV members or allow the use of GMO seeds. But the pressure to grant property rights on seed companies and allow GMOs intensified, particularly through free trade agreements.

-India: Multiple attacks on farmers’ agriculture have provoked massive demonstrations in India in recent years. The peasants protested against GMO cotton seeds imposed on them by an aggressive advertising campaign because they cause debt and fraud. They also protested against the 2001 law on the protection of plant varieties and farmers rights which penalized the exchange of peasant seeds. Over the past decade, they have also blocked a Seeds bill that would have penalized the local marketing of seeds by farmers by forcing them to register all varieties. More recently, the peasants have reacted against the establishment of a register of local biodiversity established by the government in accordance with the 2002 Biodiversity Act.

In theory, the establishment of a register of local biodiversity can be a good idea to help local people to preserve the knowledge associated with local seeds and their uses. However, many peasants have identified certain inherent problems with registers. Knowledge and farmer seeds are listed without their control, entered into databases and placed in the hands of "experts", foreign to the villages. Others said that the records are open to biopiracy and give access to researchers and companies that want access to seeds and farming knowledge, in order to create or industrial varieties of patented medicine. Therefore, following popular protests in 2004, several thousand gram panchayats, representatives in the villages; have refused to participate in the development of the register.

The Biodiversity Act includes a controversial rule on access and benefit sharing. It is specified that the farmers who give their seeds to researchers in developing and marketing purposes are entitled to claim a payment. Some villages agree with this principle, others claim that if they refuse the privatization of seeds, they must also refuse any payment resulting from this privatization.

Apart from these struggles, the peasants continue to look after their seeds in their own way and continue to defend them. There is, for example, a national seed conservation network, whose leaders meet annually and organize caravans to distribute seeds. Because of the Green Revolution, only 1% of the 200,000 varieties of Indian farm rice remain, which explains why many initiatives are working on local rice varieties. Another key crop is millet, which the Green Revolution replaced by cash crops such as wheat, rice and sugarcane. Today, in dry areas, millet is threatened by maize crops, a seed that, in India, is largely controlled by international companies as a cash crop. The peasants of southern India focus on the richness of raagi, a variety of Indian millet. Although there is no market for the thousands of varieties of raagi, the peasants give it great value for its medicinal qualities and its high nutritional content.

Seed defense is part of the defense of traditional agricultural systems, demonstrating that seed sovereignty is crucial for the food sovereignty.

-Indonesia: For over 10 years, Indonesian farmers in Eastern part of java have been criminalized under the pretext that they had violated the rights of a company called BISI, a subsidiary of the Thai company, Charoen Pokhpand. Although BISI provided no evidence, the peasants were summoned to court and some were given a short prison sentences. In most cases, no lawyer was available for farmers, who did not understand what they had done wrong.

The farmers were involved in experiments on the selection and breeding of different varieties of corn with their neighbors. Farmers were noticed because some had worked under a BISI contract, years ago. That was enough for the company to say that the peasants had stolen their seed and fertilization techniques. These convictions were trying to send a clear message of intimidation to farmers, warning them not to select or share their seeds, but to buy them exclusively to the company. The same scenario was repeated in northern Thailand.

Under the terms of the Act on the cultivation of plants in 1992, the first farmer was convicted for having reproduced and distributed seeds in 2003. After years of struggle by farmers' organizations contacting local and national governments, a coalition of groups managed to bring the case before the Constitutional Court. They argued that the law treated the peasants unfairly as if they were large seed companies. Finally, in 2013, the Court decided that the 1992 Act was unconstitutional. Under the terms of Article 33 of the Indonesian Constitution, essential resources to the existence of the population, including seeds, should be managed by the State, any privatization thus becoming illegal. Accordingly, the Tribunal said, peasants do not need permission to collect, reproduce or distribute local seeds.

Despite this victory, other laws continue to guarantee private property. For example, under the terms of the 2000 Act on the protection of plant varieties, peasants can be sentenced to prison terms of up to five years and fines of up to one billion rupees (65,000€) if they use the protected seed of companies without authorization. Indonesian farmers organizations are very critical of the Law on the Protection of Plant Varieties that the government must respect because it is part of the obligations under the Agreement on the ADEPIC from the WTO (world trade organisation). However, so far, no farmer has been prosecuted under the terms of this law.

-Thailand: For years, the peasants of Thailand resisted pressure from the US and the EU which encouraged them to adopt strict laws on seed intellectual property. After the subscription of Thailand to the WTO, the country adopted a law on the protection of plant varieties, in 1999. This law was a partial solution to avoid stricter laws such as UPOV which would have seriously threatened the 25 millions of Thai peasants. Although less restrictive than the UPOV, the Act of 1999 limits the use, by peasants, of varieties protected by a VOC. Farmers have the right to reuse protected seeds but under certain conditions: they must have acquired the original seeds themselves, they can not use them in their own farm, the seed can not be shared or exchanged, and in some cases there is also a restriction of quantity.

In the context of negotiating free trade agreements (FTA) with Thailand, the United States and Europe have pressured the country to adopt stricter rights on property and thus create flow revenue for the seed industry. Through FTAs with the United States, the seed industry wanted Thailand to adopt UPOV 91 and allow complete industrial patents on plants. In response, farmers, peasant and other social movements have built strong coalitions that interrupted the FTA negotiations. In 2006, 10,000 peasants, with their allies, faced police and blocked the headquarters of the FTA negotiations between Thailand and the United Unis.These negotiations have not resumed since.

In 2013, thousands of people demonstrated in the streets of Chiang Mai, where the FTA talks with the EU were held. According to leaks, Brussels asked that Thailand applies UPOV 91, to which the peasants were resolutely opposed. The negotiations of the FTA between the EU and Thailand have stalled but negotiations with the European Free Trade Association will soon be completed. The peasants must remain vigilant.

EUROPE

Europe is the headquarters of UPOV and also provides hundreds of patents on the genetic characteristics of seeds. The European Union legislation on seed marketing is brutal and widely exported, a ruthless seed sector and an entirely industrialised agricultural landscape. There are also social movements and vigorous peasants who fight to defend and promote farmers' seeds, to face the laws making it illegal to conserve and exchange these seeds and to build alliances with consumers, organic farming and other people's organizations; all this in order to put farmers' seeds at the center of a more diversified European food system, controlled by the citizens and based on the local produce.

In Europe, the European Union plays a dominant role in the development of area seed laws. These laws are applied in EU Member States and are also exported to neighboring countries of Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean through associations or trade agreements. POV 1994 regulations, based on UPOV 91, gives seeding companies rights on seeds at a national and European level. A directive on the 1998 patent allows the patenting of plants or genetically modified animals in the European Union. In recent years, Brussels has tried to amend a series of regulations on seed marketing, but the proposals were rejected and the process has stalled. The European Patent Office is not a European institution, but grants patents on plants throughout Europe and is based on the European Patent Convention. All this leaves rather limited room for maneuver for national governments that tend to apply European legislation.

Recently, the EU legislation on seeds has been a proposal to reform covering their marketing, health standards and controls. Farmers, seed conservation networks and social movements fought with force to avoid the worst. Their needs and strategies were different, as in the cases of Austria and France, but the overall goal has not changed the fact that diversity can thrive under the control of peasants, gardeners and communities .

-France: Like most European countries, in France, seed laws are prohibitive and are applied forcefully by lobbyists of the seed industry and their organizations. There, legislation on intellectual property forbids farmers to keep protected seed varieties. Farmers have permission to reuse protected seeds but only for 30 species and they must pay royalties to the breeders. In the case of wheat, a fee is charged when farmers deliver their crop and some are reimbursed with a receipt for the purchase of seeds. But for most other species, the French farmers continue to reproduce their farm seeds without paying royalties because the industry can not afford to force them to pay. This is why they proposed in 2013 a new law that would imply that farm-saved seed would be "counterfeited". Farmers began a hunger strike to oppose the proposal that was quickly withdrawn following their mobilization.

There are also very restrictive laws on the marketing of seed. When farmers want to sell their seeds, they must be members of a professional seed production association and register their sold varieties. For cereals, they must also certify the seed. The trial against a sales organization of unregistered ancient seed has been at the center of the social networks since a many years. Given this context, the French farmers' seed networks have been active in the fight against EU proposals to facilitate the commercialization of patented seeds and privatize the sanitary policy and control of the food chain. They have supported certain parts of the proposal on the marketing of seeds that would have greatly improved the situation. Unfortunately, the industry has been powerful enough to obtain rejection of these proposals by the European Parliament which, however, approved the privatization of the control of the food chain and health policy.

Over the last decade, small businesses that produce and distribute traditional seeds have joined an extensive network of farmers who select their seed in collaboration with public research. These associations and small French businesses work together to enable many thousands of peasants to stop using industrial seeds. They have set up "houses of farmers’ seed” to select, reproduce, exchange and collectively preserve traditional seeds. These networks organize workshops and exchanges of knowledge.

The network also helps farmers to stay within legal procedures and is an opposition method. For example, after publicly announcing their decision to collectively defend all those who are forced to break the law to save farmer seeds, some organizations have found centers in European law which allows seed exchange among farmers for experimentation and the sale to gardeners of seeds, unregistered in the catalog. Despite the rejection of the European proposals in 2014 they won the vote of a new French law allowing seed exchange among farmers' groups without experimentation restrictions. They are now preparing to deny industry standards resulting from the privatization of controls and of sanitation policies. Other groups preferred not to act in accordance with the law, but to directly oppose the objective of transforming it. Take for example the movement of "voluntary reapers of GMOs." Where the French government had authorized GMO seed crop, the French farmers and activists have engaged in activities that might cause civil unrest and have destroyed GMO fields. The action of these activists is a crime. Indeed, in France, such actions may now be subject to charges under the criminal law. These actions were reproduced in other European countries and played an important role because they have greatly reduced the commercial planting of GMOs in many areas.

-Italy: Italy is a unique situation where each of the 20 regions have a certain autonomy in the development of its laws. This led to interesting experiences where Italian organizations called for regional legislation in favor of local seeds. In Lazio, for example, local farmers' seeds and livestock breeds can be recognized as a collective heritage, making it illegal for others to declare them as private property or monopolize their use. In another Italian region, Abruzzo, local varieties of seed were about to be privatized by a Swiss bank, but the law prevented that scenario. On a regional level, some organizations of farmers therefore continue to insist that these laws are extended beyond small centers and enable farmers to have seed implantations on a larger scale. Meanwhile, the interpretation of the law is not always clear. For example, in Lazio, interpretation of "collective use" has led to geographical indications. While this started positively, for a certain breed of sheep giving excellent milk and cheese, after several years, many farmers found themselves left behind and only a small number actually benefited from this law.Today, most sheep farmers are against Lazio’s GIs.

In addition to those resulting from the proposals of civil society, the Italian peasants recently opposed several laws they considered negative. One of them concerned the phytosanitaire field. Using health measures as an, the exchange of seed of certain species had been severely restricted, which has affected the production of many winemakers. In addition, the Italian peasants are currently opposing attempts to weaken the law banning GMOs in the country. In Italy, there is a strong coalition against GMOs, comprised of consumer organizations, social movements, small farmers and even larger farmers. Industrial farmers are also interested in the exclusion of GMOs because they think it could negatively affect the Italian agricultural exports. Nevertheless, farms national regulations could be weakened by supranational agreements: as in the case of free trade agreements being negotiated between the United States and the European Union and the new legal measures relating to the GMO authorization debated right now in the European Parliament.

Other actions are taken to recover seed bypassing the law. Farmers organize consumer and direct production networks, and community gardens. If they were to certify their products as organic, farmers should use certified organic seed and pay the certification bodies, they have chosen to sell their products directly in their localities, producing breads with all sorts of varieties of cereals and transforming their vegetables. Their main goal is not to become dependent on the seed industry. Seeds are exchanged locally each year.

-UK : In the UK, those wishing to cultivate small pieces of land face difficulties, not only in terms of access to land but also for non-industrial seeds. In recent years, they have organized many fairs and seed exchanges where traditional varieties are exchanged and where visitors can learn how to select seeds. However, in the UK, these groups work almost exclusively with vegetable seeds and rarely with cereals. Consequently, the new farmers who want to work with old cereal varieties not only have many difficulties to get seeds but then once they get them, they have problems to spread them. Indeed, the oldest non-DHS varieties of wheat, rye, barley, spelt and einkorn are not listed in the catalog and therefore can not be sold legally.

Initially, the demand for these grains was not from farmers but processors such as bakers who wanted to recover traditional bakery technical and therefore sought other types of flour. More recently, the request came from distillers of alcoholic beverages such as whiskey and even thatcher craftsmen. Unlike other parts of Europe where thatched roofs are made of reeds, the UK and Ireland use straw cereals. Modern dwarf plants are inadequate and we need older varieties with higher stems.

To overcome the obstacle of the sale of such seed varieties considered illegal, farmers, selecting and producing these seeds, set up creative systems. For example, rather than selling their seeds, they can allow someone to use it through a license system. They thus avoid the "transfer of ownership" (by selling or exchanging seeds) which would be illegal under the law. The industry does not like the process and tried to stop it but farmers have taken advantage of the legislative gap. They claim that more and more farmers are joining and with the support of consumers, to recover the diversity of markets; laws could possibly be changed in their favor.

But some farmers are still cautious. Indeed, with the demand for artisanal breads becoming increasingly popular, there is a new industry waiting in ambush that will not hesitate to jump on the opportunity for profit by exploiting a new trend. While these products are marketed as using "traditional" or “local” varieties, they often come from a combination of chemical inputs on a large scale. For farmers' seeds to prosper, they must do so by relying on civil society committing to actually support production and non-industrial consumption and opposing those who market the seeds as a new mass consumer product. In the UK, as elsewhere, the fight for farmers' seeds is inseparable from the struggle for peasant agriculture.

What are the solutions?

To answer the question, the delegate can base himself off the following elements:

Realizing the importance of agriculture in the economic, social and environmental context
Research about the methods and conditions of patenting
Understanding the perspectives of multinational seed companies
Take note of the opinion of organizations like Kokopelli
Learn about organic farming

Conclusion

With the proliferation of patents and lobbies, many strikes and disagreements take place. This race to privatization harms entire populations; quickly and well we must act seeing as if hostilities continue, they will harm the industry but also the individual. The reality is here: agriculture was, is and will be our survival and hostile grain that has crept into the workings of the machine must be removed before failure.