Saturday, March 30, 2024

Arable farmers wary of plant act review

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Arable farmers have cautioned their concern over the current review of the industry’s Plant Variety Right Act.
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While plant breeders and the seed trade welcomed the long-overdue review, arable farmers were not so confident the proposed outcome would be in growers’ best interest, Federated Farmers arable industry vice chairman seeds, Colin Hurst, told the sector’s recent conference.

A review of the Plant Variety Right (PVR) Act had been on the Government’s radar since the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement was being developed.

But with uncertainty surrounding TPP, the Government decided to forge ahead and initiate the review now under way.

Hurst highlighted the act review as a big issue for the arable industry group over the next three years.

He said the act was loosely based around the provisions in the International Union for Protection for New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) agreements and while it had been updated in 1978 and 1991, each successive agreement had strengthened the rights of plant breeders and PVR holders.

While Federated Farmers had participated in the first two industry plant workshops designed to identify the interests, issues and problems with the current act, there was cause for concern.

This concern particularly stemmed around the push from plant breeders who wanted exclusive control over any harvested material and possible provisions around farm-saved seed.

This would effectively strengthen the rights of the plant breeders while weakening the rights of farmers.

Of particular interest were provisions regarding payment for any farm-saved seed used onfarm and the potential to strengthen plant breeders and PVR holders over harvested material.

“While we may understand the drivers for this in the horticulture industry, the reality for arable farmers is we could have absolutely no say in the final destination of our product and could receive no financial rewards for our inputs,” Hurst said.

He said while farmers recognised the amount of work and expense that went into plant breeding, the commercialised plant breeding sector had only been in existence for the past 100 years.

“Before that farmers were plant breeders, and we argue that we should be adequately rewarded for our inputs and farming practice, and have choice over the final destination of our product or our choice of seed selection without being unduly financially punished.”

Federated Farmers had made its position clear to Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment officials and the minister, and was in the process of arranging a farmer workshop with MBIE.

Hurst encouraged farmers to get involved with the process and let MBIE know their views.

MBIE official Ema Hao’uli said it was MBIE’s intention to publically consult on changes to the act later this year with expectation that new legislation could be introduced in the House in early 2019.

She said MBIE had made no firm decisions as to whether the current act needed a complete overhaul by incorporating all the principles of the UPOV 91 Agreement, or whether the current act just required some tweaking to make it more fit for purpose.

Hao’uli said the review process was just six months in and would take three years.

A key issue of the review would be farm-saved seed, and under TPP, New Zealand was required to bring its PVR regime into line with UPOV 91.

“If the review accedes to UPOV 91, PVR owners’ rights would be extended to include right to use the reproductive material of the variety to produce or reproduce protected variety.

“That would mean growers would have to pay a royalty to save seed,” Hao’uli said.

NZ plant breeders’ association general manager Thomas Chin said the seed trade welcomed the review – it had lobbied government for a number of years to align local plant laws with those required in the international community.

Plant breeders wanted three core components included in the updated legislation.

These were confirmation of farmers’ right to save seed, enablement of a system for collecting royalties on farm-saved seed and a robust enforcement regime to safeguard against parties allegedly infringing intellectual property rights.

Updated legislation would mean strong protective measures for plant breeders with IP rights.

Farmers would have better access to a wider and improved range of pasture and cereal crop seed genetics.

Chin said once the new plant laws were in place it should be easier for IP right holders to release new seed into the NZ market, spurring new research and development.

There was also potential for increased farm productivity and opportunities for new exports.

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