Colombo to host third regional Consultation on farmers rights

The third regional consultation on farmers’ rights,"Protecting Farmers’ Rights in the Post Cancun Global Trading Order" organized by the Law and Society Trust (LST) and The South Asian Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) will be held at the Trans Asia Hotel Colombo, from November 8 to 9

A spokesman for the organisers said that since 2001 South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) and International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) together with five partner organisations of SAWTEE have been conducting a regional programme to protect farmers’ rights to livelihood to protect, mountain-farming communities and t help them meet the challenges unleashed by the complex market forces of liberalisation, globalisation and the agreements of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

"This work is based on the conclusion that the expected opportunities for economic growth and development deriving from open economies and regions are not without accompanying pitfalls. And it is the most vulnerable segments of the society that is going to suffer the disproportionately in the process of adjustment, farming community being one of them".

The project looks at various agreements of the WTO that could have possible negative impact on the mountain farmers and their livelihood and proposes mitigating measures. Such agreements include Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreements; Agreement on Agriculture (AoA); Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).

The TRIPS Agreement, which is the most controversial of all, requires protection of plant variety (read plant breeders rights, or PBR for short) either through: a) patent, or b) effective sui generis system or c) any combinations thereof.

Most developing countries have chosen the second option. As the name suggests, sui generis system could be anything that is home grown in nature and provides protection to novel plant varieties.

TRIPS also does not impose any restriction on the member countries of the WTO to restrict the rights of farmers in order to appease the breeders.

However, developed countries, through bilateral pressure tactics, including during the accession of new countries to the WTO, are trying to impose their own model, known as International Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties (UPOV) on the developing countries.

They have gone on record claiming UPOV as the only effective sui generis model, thus facilitating the process of backdoor entry of UPOV into the WTO system.

Context

Countries of HKH region are under varied level of pressure from the developed countries to enact Plant Variety Protection Legislation as per the UPOV model and obtain its membership.

While China succumbed to the pressure of the developed countries to join this platform as a "side payment" during the process of its accession to the WTO, India, even after having enacted a farmer-friendly legislation is under pressure from the multinational plant breeding companies to join the UPOV.

Similarly, governments of Pakistan and Sri Lanka have already prepared draft bills on Upov model, but they are facing stiff resistance from civil society organisations (CSOs). In the case of Bangladesh, the European Union (EU) had imposed a condition to the needs to sign onto UPOV if she wanted to receive benefit from the Trade and Aid agreement.

Nepal, which has recently completed its accession to the WTO, was under tremendous pressure from the US to join the UPOV and prepare its PVP law as per the model prescribed by the UPOV.

However, due to strong opposition, from the CSOs (including SAWTEE) the US had to withdraw its demand and take a minimalist approach, the spokesman added.