APHD ( The Asia Partnership for Human Development )

Introduction

Agricultural seeds are of vital importance to the people of Bangladesh, particularly millions of small-scale farmers who constitute more than sixty-six per cent of our population (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistic 2003). In the context of prevailing scenario of agriculture, farmers’ rights over their seeds is a burning issue that sees at stake the existence of the Bangladeshi farmer and the continuation of a thousand year’s old tradition of agriculture.

Due to adoption of trade liberalization policies by the government of Bangladesh, imposed on the country by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Financial Institutions like the International Monetary Fund, many multinational corporations have come forward to control the agriculture sector of the country. With a view to capture the huge seed market, these global transnational corporations (TNCs) have introduced patented seeds of hybrid and genetically modified (GM) varieties. Consequently, the conservation of traditional natural varieties of seeds is no longer possible and millions of peasants in Bangladesh are currently experiencing a tremendous seed crisis.

Jute seed is one example, in this regard. The problems of everincreasing seed prices, manipulated seed crises, below quality seeds, and lower germination rate combine to pose a great threat to the agricultural production system in near future. TNCs already occupy about 80% of the vegetable seed market and 20% of the rice seed market. In the global context, only ten big multinational corporations control about 40% of world seed market that which indicates that the food security of the planet is more-and-more controlled by only few multinational corporations. It will not be long before when these corporations will capture the whole seed market of Bangladesh. Therefore, it is important to promote farmers’ rights to seed and empower the rural communities so that they can protect their own livelihoods.

In this context, Caritas Bangladesh, along with Society for Sustainable Agriculture in Bangladesh (SSA Bangladesh) and a partner NGO named Unnayan Dhara, with the financial help of APHD, has elevated the issue of farmers’ seed rights as an absolute priority. Awareness raising campaigns along with policy advocacy are now needed as well as on-the-farm conservation of the indigenous seed resources to protect farmers’ right to seeds.

It is very unfortunate that the government of Bangladesh has no initiative for conservation of indigenous seed resources as well as to protect farmer seed rights. On the contrary, the government policies are encouraging the private sector to establish control over seeds. Indee d, the government has already declared the National Seed Policy (NSP) with the objective of promoting seed industry in the private sector. Almost all the provisions of the NSP favor the corporate seed business. The policy also intends to consolidate the conditional opportunity of the private sector to import hybrid rice seeds. Unfortunately, there is no provision to conserve indigenous seed resources and biodiversity such as when the government committed in the international forum like Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and Agenda 21 of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).

Hybrid, GM seeds and farmers’ seed rights

There is little doubt that multinational companies are promoting hybrid and GM (genetically modified) seeds in Bangladesh. Despite the protest by reputed agricultural scientists, plant protection specialist, politicians, NGOs, environmentalists and intellectuals, the National Seed Approval Committee of the government of Bangladesh approved the import of hybrid seed in 1998 without any prior assessment of the impacts of such seeds on our agriculture. In addition, very recently Bangladesh has entered into an agreement that will promote genetically modified crops. Under the National Agriculture Research System (NARS), four types of crops will be cultivated in Bangladesh including: drought-and-saline tolerant rice; late blight resistant potato; fruit and shoot borer resistant eggplant; and pod borer resistant chickpea. This project is supported financially by Cornell University and USAID. Both the hybrid and GM seeds have various problems and are a great threat to the existence of the poor farmers of Bangladesh.

Patents on genetic resources for food and agriculture accelerate corporate control of the seed sector, and are a great threat to the food security and livelihoods of small farmers. Patents will reduce farmers and breeders access to seeds and genetic resources. They could also make seeds more expensive due to royalty payments, restrictive contracts and increased commercialization. Once a patented seed is planted, companies insist that farmers purchase new seed every year from them, and they can actually penalize farmers for saving seeds. This compromises farmers’ rights to save, grow, exchange and sell patented seeds. The use of patented seeds, plants and genetically modified animals makes small farmers dependent on the corporations that own the patents. Obviously, this could change fundamentally agricultural practices in least developed and developing countries like Bangladesh, by facilitating the growth of agri-business and the decline of small farms and biodiversity.

The adopted and endorsed practice of the Green Revolution has led to increased production but at the cost of the capacity of the farmland. Current practices of intensified farming require more chemical inputs, high yielding and hybrid varieties. As farmers have become dependent on the market for about all their agricultural inputs; the risks associated with crop production have drastically increased; biodiversity has become degraded; environments have been polluted; and human and animal health are under a great threat of hazards. Although the effectiveness of these technologies is still under scrutiny by various groups, it is evident that primarily these inputs are costly. Moreover, most ironically farmers are loosing their own knowledge and resources.

Background

Bangladesh is an agro-based least developed country where about 85% of the population live in rural areas, and are predominantly small-scale or landless farmers who are fully dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. The majority of the rural population is directly involved in food production, though holding only a meager 0.07 hectares of agricultural land per capita. Before the so-called “green revolution” (which started in the early 1960s), the peasants of Bangladesh were self-sufficient for their seeds. They produced and preserved seeds of various crops in their houses and female members of the households were engaged in seed preservation activities. There were about 12,500 varieties of rice available in Bangladesh, which had been developed by the peasants for thousands of years.

This has all changed due to introduction of high yielding varieties (HYV), and now almost all of the indigenous varieties are endangered, with most preserved in the gene bank of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines or other countries like America, China and Japan. Regrettably, only a few varieties are preserved at the gene bank of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI). These naturally developed varieties have always showed excellent ability to survive against the South Asia’s specific problems of crop production like flood, drought, salinity, pests, and more.

The adopted and endorsed practices of the green revolution have led to an increase of production but at the cost of the life of the farm. The trend has been to use intensify the use of inputs on the same land to produce crops; a practice that has led to degradation of land fertility and productivity in terms of both quality and quantity. In this context, marginalized farmers are driven to produce more to supply the market but in doing so, he or she is not receiving his/her just value due to high input costs.

It is now quite clear that the peasants of Bangladesh are experiencing a tremendous seed crisis, and the recent crisis of jute seed is a burning example in this regards. In 2004, farmers purchased jute seeds at 40 (taka) per kilogram. However, by early 2006 this price had risen to 300-400/per Kg. The problems of ever-increasing seed prices, manipulated seed crises, low quality seed caused by lower germination rates, if left unchecked will combine to cause a great threat for their existence of the domestic agricultural production system in the near future.

Multinational corporations already occupy about 80% of vegetable seed market and it is 20% for rice seed market of Bangladesh. Disturbingly, only ten big multinational corporations control about 40% of world seed market. This indicates that if left unchecked the raw material for food (seeds) will be controlled by only few multinational corporations. It is not far away when the multinational corporations will capture the whole seed market of the country - situation that must be suicidal for the farmer as well as the country. Nowadays, after the inclusion of agriculture in the trade liberalization agreements of WTO, the multinational corporations have identified seed business as a thrust sector for their monopoly business. In order to achieve their target they are developing new varieties like hybrid and genetically modified (GM) varieties by using terminator technology so that the farmers fail to produce their own seeds for cultivation. This will wipe out the farmers own seeds from their hands and create opportunity for their monopoly business. Introduction of such varieties will also promote the business of agrochemicals, agro-equipment and other highly expensive technologies of the multinational corporations. The result of this is clear in that peasants will become fully dependent on the corporations for their crop production, a situation that will threaten their very existence.

Foreign control over seeds

The history of corporate seed business is not very old. In order to capture the Asian rice market, both the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations established the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Philippines in 1960. It was the starting point of the green revolution that paved the way of corporate business of seeds, agrochemicals and agro-equipments. Since the early 1970s, the pesticides industry has gone through a period of consolidation. Today, after a flurry of merger and acquisitions, corporate domination of the pesticide market, the food system in general has reached a peak of corporate control. The top five agrochemical companies, Syngenta (a merger of Novartis and AstraZeneca), Aventis (Rhone- Poulanc and AgrEvo), Monsanto (present name Pharmacia), BASF and DuPont hold dominant position in the seeds, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and related markets. Presently, these companies account for nearly two-thirds of the commercial seed market and virtually 100 per cent of the market for GM seeds. Monsanto alone occupies 91% of genetic crop of the world. Only three big companies Monsanto (Pharmacia), Aventis Crop Science, and Syngenta are controlling the major part of the world agriculture and seed market.

Multinational companies captured the whole sector of food and agriculture, which ultimately caused serious suffering to the farmers losing their own seed varieties. Now farmers in Bangladesh are under pressure to use hybrid seeds and gradually avoid the local traditional seed varieties. The prevailing scenario clearly means that more and more farmers are being deprived of their right to preserve and use local and indigenous varieties of seeds. Therefore, it is important to promote farmers’ rights to seed and empower the rural communities so that they can protect their own livelihoods.

TRIPS, UPOV and farmers’ seed rights

Access to plant genetic resources (PGR) is critical for the propagation of new plant varieties. Through informal breeding and in situ conservation, farmers and indigenous communities developed an infinite variety of landraces and wild varieties. Public sector researchers and commercial plant breeders seek their knowledge to enable continued research and development of new varieties. An international intellectual property rights (IPR) regime, anchored on the trade related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and the international convention for the protection of new varieties of plants (UPOV), seeks to provide exclusive ownership of new plant varieties to commercial breeders.

TRIPS and UPOV are however not in conformity with two treaties arrived under the aegis of United Nations. Both the Conventions on Biological Diversity (CBD in 1992) which preceded TRIPS and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR in 2001) adopted subsequent to TRIPS, seek to secure the rights of farmers and indigenous communities to PGRs. Unfortunately, unlike TRIPS, these two treaties do not have an enforcement mechanism.

The grant of patents and plant breeders’ rights has two grave implications for access to PGRs and the food security of the developing world. First, farmers would be denied the right to save patented or protected seeds for subsequent planting and will have to buy seeds for each season. Globally, the livelihood of 1.4 billion farmers is at stake. They would loose control over plant varieties to corporations that control the seed market. In fact, the battle lines are already been drawn, as seed companies have sued hundreds of Canadian and US farmers for using farm saved patented seeds. It is logical to assume that farmers in developing countries will not be spared. Six big companies (Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow, Aventies and Grupo Pulsar) already own 74% of the patents on major food crops, including rice, wheat, maize, soya and sorgum. There are now over 9,000 patents on staple crops and just four multinational companies hold 44% of these.

Second, farmers and researchers will have to seek permission and pay loyalties before they use the patented seeds. This will have consequences for biodiversity. Farmers who traditionally bred and cultivated their own seeds evolved a great variety to meet the special requirements of the ecosystem in which they cultivate. Corporations, however, have no incentive to breed a vast variety of seeds. Economies of scale in research and development lead corporations to focus on only commercially viable varieties. Moreover, laboratory developed varieties can never replicate the dynamic interactions that take place in natural ecosystem to produce an immense variety of seeds.

Patent on genetic resources for food and agriculture (GRFA) accelerate corporate control of the seed sector. Patents will reduce access to seeds and genetic resources to farmers and breeders. They could also make seeds more expensive due to royalty payments, restrictive contracts and increased commercialization. Once a patented seed is planted, companies can insist that farmers purchase new seed every year, and penalize them for saving seeds. This compromises farmers’ rights to save, grow, exchange and sell of patented seeds. The use of patented seeds, plants and genetically modified animals would make small farmers dependent on the corporations that own the patents. This will change fundamentally the way agriculture is practiced in least developed and developing countries like Bangladesh by facilitating the growth of agri-business and the decline of small farms and biodiversity.

Pirating indigenous knowledge and seed resources

Species or varieties of diversified characteristics are a precondition for developing new varieties because the scientists cannot create a gene that regulates biological character of a plant or animal. They have to depend on naturally occurring characteristics of plants or animals. They can only combine characteristics to develop a new character. Bangladesh, like some other Asian and African countries is very rich in biodiversity and it is clear that developed countries and their multinational companies have done and are doing their best to capture the biological diversity of our country and of developing countries in Asia and Africa. They are stealing our genetic resources of by using the opportunity of ignorance, unconsciousness, technological weakness and poverty of these countries.

We believe that intellectual property rights are inappropriate in relation to living organisms and indigenous knowledge and should be non-devisable public goods. However, TRIPS has made it possible for companies to patent and exploit the traditional knowledge and local genetic resources (usually plant and medicines) of poor communities worldwide. In the developing world, genetic resources and indigenous knowledge are intricately linked, with the holders of indigenous and community knowledge also the users and preservers of the genetic resources.

Instead of harnessing this knowledge for the benefit of all, and the sustainable development of communities, companies are using it for their own profit. Patent of genetic resources generally do not recognize the rights of local communities to their traditional knowledge. Claiming private property rights on plants, processes and knowledge developed by generations of farmers, or traditional healers, raises serious questions about the application of the concept of ‘prior art’ in intellectual patent regimes. Indeed, such behavior can be viewed as a form of intellectual property theft.

Bangladesh was once very rich in diversity of rice seeds, possessing 12,500 identified indigenous varieties. Yet most of the varieties are preserved in the gene bank of IRRI. The patent of the anti-fungal properties of neem, the healing properties of turmeric, and the aromatic qualities of basmati rice are the example of biopiracy, which illustrate the problem with patent laws allowing legal rights to traditional knowledge and the genetic resources of agriculture. Unfortunately, we do not have any records or information in regards of bio-piracy.

Status of seed resources in Bangladesh

The means of satisfying nine-tenths or more of all the basic survival needs of the people and farmers of Bangladesh come from the biological diversity. Probably only half or less of this essential diversity comes from formal cultivation of food and fibers. All these resources come from the genetic diversity (a part of the biological diversity), which the country is losing every year and no reliable information is available. Records show, in 1915 the Agricultural Research Station in Dhaka estimated that there were about 15,000 varieties of rice in Bangladesh. By the nineteen eighties, a survey listed a total of 12,479, most of which at present have disappeared. Only a few High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of rice along with the few hybrid varieties are presently cultivated. The most popular HYV rice varieties are not local; they have been modified in the laboratory and introduced among the Bangladeshi farmers.

In the late 1960s, HYV seeds for rice were imported to support the Accelerated Food Production Program sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Thus, during the 1970s, large quantities of HYV seeds were imported from the IRRI in the Philippines and from India. In 1970, the BRRI was established to develop varieties that better suited to local growing conditions. So far, the institute has developed 41 HYV varieties and a hybrid variety. On the other hand, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has developed twenty-one varieties of wheat, four of maize (including three hybrid varieties), thirty-two of potato, twenty-four of pulses, twenty-one of oilseeds, forty-one of vegetable and twenty-one of fruits.

To meet the growing needs for food grains, the Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) was established in the 1960s. BADC tried to procure modern agricultural inputs (i.e. HYV seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and agro-equipment) and distribute these to the farmer at a highly subsidized cost. The subsidized input costs were mostly borne by foreign donor agencies.

Up to the 1970s the diffusion rate of these technologies was very slow due mainly to unwillingness of the farmers to change their traditional farming system. Under such condi-tions, donor agencies advised reducing subsidy on inputs and encouraged privatization of the market for inputs. Consequently, a series of privatization and deregulation policies were implemented beginning from the 1980s, a significant decade in the history of agriculture in Bangladesh. Since then, in the seed, fertilizers, pesticides and agro-equipment market, distribution systems gradually transferred from the BADC to private traders/ multinational companies. Today, multinational companies along with local agents are controlling almost the whole market of seed, agrochemicals and agro-equipment.

A large number of alien species/ varieties of different crops have been introduced in the ecosystem of Bangladesh without proper scientific investigation on their possible impact on the ecosystem and native species. Moreover, recently Bangladesh has entered into an agreement that will promote genetically modified crops. Under the National Agriculture Research System (NARS), four types of crops will be cultivated in Bangladesh including drought-and-saline tolerant rice, late blight resistant potato, fruit, shoot borer resistant eggplant, and pod borer resistant chickpea. This project is co-funded by Cornell University and USAID.

Another research work is going on to develop a vitamin A rich GM variety of rice named “golden rice” which is patented by the multinational company Syngenta. BRRI is conducting the research with support from IRRI. As Bangladesh is very rich in vitamin A rich vegetable and fruits it is patently absurd to develop and promote a vitamin A rich GM crop, one patented by a foreign corporation. Tragically, the government of Bangladesh is positively considering promoting this variety.

In this context, although Bangladesh needs to enact precautionary principles about HYV, hybrid and GM crop varieties there is no serious attempt to do so by the government. Rather, it has recently formulated a National Program of Biotechnology as a complementary route to fight poverty and food insecurity. There is a National Executive Committee on Biotechnology as well as taskforce for sustainable biotechnological development.

The government of Bangladesh, either owing to dependency on international largeness for survival or due to a thriving set of internal vested interests, has adopted the policies of privatization, deregulation and liberalization that have ultimately led to further pauperization of our farmers.

Future trends in the domestic seed business

As stated earlier, multinational corporations are strengthening their control over the seeds sector of the world especially agro-based developing countries like Bangladesh. Patents promote the consolidation of global seed and agrichemical businesses, concentrating power over seed and seed choices in a very few hands. Poor farmers are already vulnerable player in the marketplace, and to be operating in a non-competitive market biased against them only increases their vulnerability.

Transnational Corporations (TNCs) are paying premium prices to acquire local seed companies in least developed and developing countries in anticipation of monopoly rents once the IPRs are fully enforced. If this trend continues, the choices of seed available to poor farmers will be severely limited. Already, Monsanto controls 60 percent of the corn market in Brazil. Three companies, Cargill, Pioneer and CP-Dekalb, control 70 percent of the Asian seed market.

If TRIPS provisions and practices are solidified it will be a disaster for the poor farmers in the least developed and developing countries like Bangladesh. Traditionally Bangladeshi farmers rely on farm saved seeds and only enter the market to purchase seeds about once in about once in several years. But, if they buy and plant patented seeds, companies can insist that they purchase new seeds every year. Seeds are often sold in a package with fertilizers, pesticides, which further increases farmer’s dependence on the market, while also increases the risk of indebtedness when crops fail. It would also decrease farmers’ access to seeds, reduce efforts in publicly funded plant breeding, increase the loss of genetic resources, prevent seed sharing and could put poor farmers out of business.

National seed policy

Seemingly, it is very unfortunate that the government of Bangladesh has no initiative for conservation of indigenous seed resources as well as to protect farmers’ rights to seeds. On the contrary, government policies are encouraging the private sector to establish control over seed. So far, BADC is the only public sector corporation supplying quality seeds. At present, only a small portion (about 5%) of the required quality seeds for different crops are supplied by the BADC. The government has a target to increase it to 10% in its five years plan. The rest of the seeds are produced, preserved and used under private management, especially at the farmers’ level. Government has already declared the National Seed Policy (NSP) with the objective of promoting a seed industry in the private sector. In the pursuance of the seed policy, the government has revised the Seed Act of 1977, and formulated seed rules in the light of Seed Act (Amendment) 1997. Almost all the provisions of the NSP favor the corporate seed business. The policy also intends to consolidate the conditional opportunity to the private sector to import hybrid rice seeds.

Conclusion

The question of seed is a vital issue for both the existence of the farmer as well as the thousand years old traditional agriculture of Bangladesh. With a view to capture the huge seed market of the country, the MNCs have introduced patented seeds of hybrid and Genetically Modified (GM) varieties. On-farm conservation of these varieties is not possible which leads to wiping out of farmers own seeds.

In the aforementioned context, it is a crucial issue to protect farmers’ seed rights. Only a few NGOs in Bangladesh have taken the issue to heart and farmers are not concerned at all about the tremendous impact of corporate control over their seed resources. Massive awareness campaigns as well as policy advocacy are needed to change this reality. Solidarity of like-minded organizations is also essential for the success. Caritas Bangladesh has planned to create large awareness to protecting seeds rights of the farmers through undertaking programs with the likeminded NGOs in Bangladesh with the financial help of APHD.

What can be done to protect farmers’ rights to seeds

Banning import and promotion of hybrid seeds and GM varieties that can not be preserved by the farmers for growing in the next season
Strengthening research for increasing yield and cost effectiveness of indigenous varieties of crops
Promotion of indigenous varieties
To encourage farmers for diversified cropping
In situ and ex situ conservation of indigenous varieties
Community seed bank development
Seed Resource Centre development
Proper documentation of biodiversity for protecting bio-piracy
Promoting farmers’ innovations (such as Haridhan) and indigenous knowledge. And study, conservation and promotion of Haridhan
Strengthening BADC so that it can meet the total demand of quality seeds
Policy advocacy for conservation and strengthening research on indigenous seeds
Policy advocacy for resisting introduction of hybrid and GM crops
Awareness campaign to raise farmers’ voice for their seed rights
Networking with likeminded NGOs funded by APHD and Caritas
Capacity building of both farmers and NGOs on conservation, development and promotion of indigenous varieties
Resisting corporate control over seed resources
Resisting patent on life form
Revision of TRIPS, resisting UPOV and developing a sui generis system for deserving Intellectual property rights in the light of Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD 1992).