Britain is a signatory to trade deals that require countries to abide by opaque international agreements that require them to introduce domestic regulations to prevent farmers from trading or selling seeds privately.
The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants 1991 (UPOV91) contains provisions that give plant breeders exclusive rights to new plant varieties.
If a country signs up to UPOV91 or commits to complying with it under a trade agreement, it will ensure that farmers cannot legally access seeds of privatized varieties only if they buy from a licensed location. must be regulated. Even gifts cannot be exchanged. Or save it for next season.
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Campaign group Transform Trade said such laws would put small farmers at risk of fines and jail time if they saved, traded or sold seeds on their land. report Highlights the issue with UPOV91.
Restrictions on seed exchange and storage are a particular problem for farmers in the Global South, many of whom are highly dependent on how their seeds are sourced.
About 60% of seeds used by farmers in the Middle East, Africa and Asia are obtained this way, compared to about 10% in North America, according to a 2018 report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). .
Despite cultivating only 12 percent of all agricultural land, smallholder farmers produce at least 35 percent of the world's food, with some estimating this figure to be closer to 70 percent. In Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, smallholders operating on less than two hectares of land provide an estimated 80% of the food grown in these regions.
Farmers can reduce costs by replacing and saving seeds. Transform Trade says native plants and crops tend to be more resilient to climate change because they have evolved over centuries to survive within local ecosystems.
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Additionally, the diversity of seed varieties gives farmers more choice in which seeds they find most appropriate to grow locally. Crop diversity can also reduce crop failure due to extreme weather, pests and disease, the paper argues.
The UK is one of several countries pushing for the introduction of UPOV91 in trade agreements. There are 19 trade agreements covering 68 countries that require or encourage signatories to comply with or ratify UPOV91. Many of these are in countries classified by the United Nations as „least developed“ or „developing“ countries.
Many trade agreements containing these provisions were transferred from the EU to the UK after Brexit, but the UK government has chosen not to renegotiate them.
Although there is no published UK trade strategy that reveals the UK government's intentions, the fact that Transform Trade did not renegotiate these agreements when it formally left the EU in 2020 suggests that the UK claims that this shows support for the spread of UPOV91 and stricter seed laws. trade agreement.