On 28th February 2015, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela enacted a new seed law. The law was adopted by the National Assembly and is the result of several years of consultation within the country, with ample participation of peasant organizations and civil society organizations.
The new law includes a prohibition of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and any form of patents and plant breeders’ rights, as well as detailed provisions on support for peasants’ and farmers’ seed systems.
An intergovernmental working group created by the Human Rights Council to develop a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other Peoples Working in Rural Areas is meeting May 17-20, 2016, in Geneva. The draft Declaration that is being discussed includes a right to seeds (article 22).
The new Voluntary guide for national seed policy formulation is now available at the FAO Website in English, Spanish and French.
UPOV members are meeting in Geneva this week for its Spring session. Its main rule-making body, the Consultative Committee (CC) will meet on 17th March in the morning to be followed by the UPOV Council, its highest decision-making body. Generally the proceedings of the CC are closed to observers.
In an open letter dated 28th January 2016 addressed to UPOV Members, AFSA, a pan African platform representing small holder farmers, pastoralists, hunter/gatherers, indigenous peoples, citizens and environmentalists from Africa expressed its outraged at the deliberate exclusion of civil society and representatives of smallholder farmers from discussions leading to the adoption of a regional Protocol on PVP.
China’s revised Seed Law was adopted on 4 November 2015 by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and the law went into effect on 1st January 2016. The revision process lasted almost 3 years and the revision of some provisions raised nationwide attention and debate among the industry, agricultural departments of all levels, research institutions and civil society groups.
This publication by GRAIN looks at what the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) might mean for farmers’ seeds in the region, in the context of the recently signed Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). RCEP will include the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It will also include six regional partners that already have free trade agreements (FTAs) with ASEAN: Australia, China, India, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.
Five of the global issues most frequently debated today are the decline of biodiversity in general and of agrobiodiversity in particular, climate change, hunger and malnutrition, poverty and water. Seed is central to all five issues. The way in which seed is produced has been arguably their major cause. But it can also be the solution to all these issues
Salvatore Ceccarelli (2016) The Centrality of Seed: Building Agricultural Resilience Through Plant Breeding
59 civil society organisations from South and North urge the ITPGRFA Secretary Shakeel Bhatti to continue with the process outlined in Notification GB6-028 and to identify independent experts to undertake an investigation on implementation of Article 9 by UPOV and WIPO.
