Tanzanian farmers are facing heavy prison sentences if they continue their traditional seed exchange!
In
order to receive development assistance, Tanzania has to give Western
agribusiness full freedom and give enclosed protection for patented
seeds. “Eighty percent of the seeds are being shared and sold in an
informal system between neighbors, friends and family. The new law
criminalizes the practice in Tanzania,” says Michael Farrelly of
TOAM, an organic farming movement in Tanzania.
Brutal
corporate onslaught against third world - Part 2 - Under pressure of
the G8
Tanzania
applied the legislation concerning intellectual property rights on
seeds as a condition for receiving development assistance through the
New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN). The NAFSN was
launched in 2012 by the G8 with the goal to help 50 million people
out of poverty and hunger in the ten African partner countries
through a public-private partnership. The initiative receives the
support of the EU, the US, the UK, the World Bank and the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation.
Companies
that invest in the NAFSN are expected to pay attention to small-scale
farmers and women in their projects, but sometimes little of that is
noticed. As a result, the NAFSN receives a lot of criticism from NGOs
and civil-society movements. Even the European Parliament issued a
very critical report in May this year to urge the European Commission
to take action.
With the
changes in the legislation, Tanzania became the first least-developed
country to join the UPOV 91-convention. All countries that are
members of the World Trade Organization must include intellectual
property rights on seeds in their legislation, but the
least-developed countries are exempt from recognizing any form of
intellectual property rights until 2021. After that, the issues would
be reviewed.
“In
practice, it means that the fifty million people that the New
Alliance wants to help can escape from poverty and hunger only if
they buy seeds every year from the companies that are standing behind
de G8,” says Michael Farrelly.
“As
a result, the farmers’ seed system will collapse, because they
can’t sell their own seeds”, according to Janet Maro.
“Multinationals will provide our country with seeds and all
the farmers will have to buy them from them. That means that we will
lose biodiversity, because it is impossible for them to investigate
and patent all the seeds we need. We’re going to end up with fewer
types of seeds.”
“I have
seeds of my family, because my great-grandmother used them. She gave
them to my grandmother, who gave them to my mother and my mother then
gave them to me. I’ve planted them here in the demonstration garden
in Morogoro and that’s why very rare plants now grow here”,
says Janet Maro. “Local farmers find it hard to
understand the idea that you can patent and own a seed. Seed should
simply be something that is easily available”, says Janet Maro.
Source:
Big corporations are grabbing huge
cultivable areas especially in the developing countries in order
to control food production.
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