Food crisis traced to changes in seed supply system

 

Erosion in seed diversity and seed sovereignty will have an adverse effect not only on food and nutrition supplies but also on the environment

By Francis Maingaila

Lusaka – (9-06-2022 – Zambia24) - A consortium of renowned Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) formed not only to advocate for the food and seed sovereignty but also climate justice in Zambia have traced the food crisis to changes in the seed supply system, erosion of seed diversity and seed sovereignty.

The organizations including Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM), Zambia Alliance for Agro Biodiversity (ZAAB), Caritas-Zambia, and FIAN International - Zambia spoken to either severely, collectively, and individually agreed that restricting farmers does not only affect access to quality and affordable seeds but also the right to select, save and share choice seeds that are not patented, genetically modified, owned or controlled by seed giants, will kill the dream of attaining food sovereignty.

For example, PELUM Zambia programs manager Wilfred Miga told Zambia24 in an exclusive interview that securing seed control is the first link in the food chain and is the foundation of food sovereignty.

If farmers do not own their seed varieties which they can save, improve and exchange in the neighborhood, Miga suggested, the possibility of having clean and health food are zero,"

Miga added that seed sovereignty includes rights for farmers not only to save, breed, and exchange but also having access to diverse open-source seeds, which are not patented, genetically modified, owned, or controlled by emerging foreign seed giants.

Miga was of the view that seed sovereignty has everything to do with reclaiming seeds and biodiversity as a common and public good which can easily be accessible to farmers whenever needed.

He regretted that there is a very rapid sovereignty seed diversity erosion and the control over seeds in general not only in Zambia but the whole world is concentrated in the hands of a very small number of giant corporations,  a situation believed to be behind the worsening food security.

He said currently PELUM is working with other like-minded seed sovereignty activists to help small-scale farmers to reclaim their right to plant seeds of their choice.

Besides destroying the seed diversity using the patented genetically engineered seeds, Miga further regretted that across the world seed laws, are introduced partly not only to regulate and enforce compulsory registration of seeds but also used to undermine local seed sovereignty.

He said the control is forcing the small-scale farmers into depending on the patented giant seeds produced by the multinational corporations, making it impossible for the small-scale farmers to grow their own seed diversity.

Miga observed that the multinational corporations are not only robbing farmers their rights to use their seeds and patenting the same climate-resilient seeds, which were originally owned by the small-scale farmers but also knowledge for climate adaptation.

“Another threat to seed sovereignty being experienced in some countries is genetic contamination where seeds are genetically bioengineered to contain the pesticide bacillus thuringiensis bacterium which he said has led the affected countries to lose indigenous seeds,” he added.

He also regretted that more seed supply gets eroded, the situation he said was making farmers to become more dependent on the expensive patented bioengineered seed, which requires the service of chemicals to grow well.

As a country, Miga said Zambia has equally lost too many nutritious seed diversities to multinational companies force farmers to  buy not only expensive seed but also chemicals.

Similarly, the Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAABs) national coordinator Mutinta Nketani observed that the disappearance of biodiversity and seed sovereignty has continued to create a major crisis for agriculture and food security.

 Nketani told Zambia24 in an exclusive telephone interview that some multinational corporations like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) were and are still pushing governments to replace sovereignty seed with unreliable patented nonrenewable seed which must be bought every year.

Nketani was of the view that the agenda for AGRA in Africa is a major assault on seed sovereignty which is responsible for not only clean but also health food the people need for a healthy living.

Nketani held the view that restoring the seed diversities and increasing access to diverse seeds will lead to better integrate access safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable food for better health living.

Until recently, when agricultural scientists began to develop patented hybrid seeds, expensive chemical fertilizer and pesticide for high yielding crops, the commodification of seed varieties was almost impossible because, by its nature, the legacy of seed innovation is rooted in human history where farmers not only freely grown, resown and exchanged but also shared their seed varieties which can reproduce itself in their localities. 

According to an ActionAid sponsored report on food sovereignty and farmer's rights, the advancement of technology has necessitated the commodifying of seeds resulting to many seed varieties that existed amongst smallholder farmers since time immemorial disappearing.

"The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was not only to regulate but also to enforce sanctions for alleged international trade violations," the report read in parts.

The report stated that WTO requires all member states to have some form of legislation to protect plant varieties. It is on this basis that the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRAIPS) agreement which stipulates the transition period of compliance, standards of patent protection, flexibilities and exceptions in intellectual property.

However, the report suggested, that the enforcement of the TRAIPS agreement on intellectual property protection focuses much on the implementation as opposed to the adoption of patents in agricultural biodiversity.

And the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) president Jarvis Zimba identified the regulations Associated with the Intellectual Property laws used to regulate seeds in Zambia as the Plant Varieties and Seeds Act which provides for the certification and control of seeds, the Plant breeders Act focuses on new plant varieties development and the Patents Act, which not only stipulates the laws of intellectual property concerning the legal principles but also govern the nature of seeds, requirements for their creation, who acquires and enjoys rights and how they are enforced and terminated.

With these laws in place, Zimba said, the seeds created by entities and individuals are granted private rights in intellectual property law by way of patents.

He said the patents comprising private rights are granted to individuals and entities to exclude other none members on the market from distributing, patented seeds without seeking permission from the patent holder.

Environment, Food Sovereignty, and Climate Justice Activist, Simon Mwamba observed that the Plant Variety Protection is another form of intellectual property granted to plant breeders to provide for exclusive monopoly rights for plants' genetic makeup.

Mwamba told Zambia24 in an exclusive telephone interview that More and more countries in the COMESA region are fulfilling this requirement by signing up to the International Union for the Prot­ection of New Variet­ies of Plants (UPOV), which places limits on the production, sale, and share diverse seeds that stand a better chance of adapting to cl­imate change.

"To meet UPOV criteria, the report suggests,  not only commercial seeds be genetically distinct but also uniform and stable," read the report in parts.

Unfortunately, Mwamba said these qualities are a sent from the seed varieties that are genetically diverse and continually evolving which ordinary farmers have developed, and those handed down through generations.

Unable to meet these criteria, Mwamba said small scale farmers lack intellectual property rights to the plant are genetically diverse seed varieties bred themselves and continually evolving.

In addition to Plant Variety Protection, Mwamba regretted seed marketing laws in some countries forbidding the sale and the sharing of seeds that are certified to meet standards of high commercial yield under industrial farming conditions. ​

Often, Mwamba observed, the only available seed varieties for farmers to buy are those seed varieties that are vulnerable to climate change and require the use of costly chemicals which unfortunately many farmers cannot afford to buy.

Particular crops need particular conditions, and as temperatures and rain­fall shift, so, too, do the areas in which a plant can thrive.

By planting a range of different crops, each with its genetic diversity and potential for change, Mwamba the plants themselves can adapt, and if one crop fails, farmers don't necessarily lose their whole harvest.

"The more uniform the genetic pool is, the more vulnerable the crops are to all sorts of environmental stresses,  created by climate change," Mwamba said. ​

He said in the end the question of who produces new plant varieties is critical for the future of the food chain and the person who controls seeds has control over the food supply also.

In the process of this control, Mwamba observed some heirloom crops and the genetic diversity are not only disappearing from the face of the earth but also the channels through which seeds are exchanged and distributed is narrowing and the seeds themselves are becoming less diverse.

He observed that a wealth of locally adapted crops is being replaced at a fast rate by standardized varieties provided for commercial purposes and cannot be replanted the following farming season.

The reports suggests that, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, (FAO) on agriculture in Africa, 75% of the world's crop varieties disappeared between 1900 and now.

What has contributed to the disappearing of the crop varieties not only in Africa is the emergence of restrictive laws that seek to promote hybrid seeds for high yielding crops," the report stated.

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