TITLE: Uganda: "Privatisation
of seeds moving apace" and "Exposing 'the African Green
Revolution' AUTHOR: Aileen Kwa PUBLICATION: A two-part
series published by Inter Press Service (Geneva) DATE: 21
February 2008 URL:
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=41289
and
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=41288
TRADE-UGANDA:
PRIVATISATION OF SEEDS MOVING APACE
Analysis by Aileen Kwa
GENEVA, Feb 21 (IPS) -- The Ugandan parliament will soon have a hearing on the draft Plant Variety Protection Bill, approved by the cabinet early last year. If passed unmodified, the bill is likely to entrench the rights of breeders and companies while curtailing the rights of small farmers to exchange, save and breed new varieties using hybrid seeds.
There is an inherent conflict between small farmers' and breeders' rights. Breeders are often the companies that pay research institutions to propagate new hybrid seed varieties. Hybrid seeds are bred artificially to improve the characteristics of plants, such as yield, appearance and disease resistance.
Breeders are keen to sell their seeds on the market and to ensure that they have a monopoly in the market. It is important for them that any commercial use of their seed is disallowed by law hence their push for stringent intellectual property legislation.
According to an inside government source in Uganda who spoke on condition of anonymity, seeds companies including the likes of Monsanto have been lobbying the government for such intellectual property protection.
They are doing all they can to capture the local market. Government research institutions such as the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), which used to produce traditional seeds for farmers, are now being paid by seed companies to produce their hybrid seeds.
According to various analysts, the first drafts of the Plant Variety Protection Bill were careful in trying to strike a balance between breeders' and farmers' rights. In fact, the draft was based on the former Organisation of African Unity's Model Law adopted in 1998, which leans towards the protection of farmers' rights.
This includes the right to save, exchange and breed these seeds on a non-commercial basis, age-old practices that small farmers all over the world have used.
However, there was a stalemate in the Ugandan cabinet when it considered the draft bill in February last year. At issue was where to draw the line between farmers' and breeders' rights.
According to one source, the conundrum was resolved by President Yoweri Museveni himself, who came to the cabinet meeting where the Plant Variety Protection Bill was discussed and condemned local communities for "sitting on resources without utilizing them'.
He therefore felt they did not need to be consulted and instructed that the local community rights section in the bill be removed.
There have been concerted efforts from certain quarters to promote the use of hybrid seeds in Uganda. Early last year, a grant of 150 million dollars was provided to the country and its neighbours by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
The money is to pay for more research into hybrid seeds, the provision of inorganic fertilizers, water management and extension services to facilitate the propagation of these seeds.
According to the government source, the US Agency for International Development's project, known as the Uganda Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Program (APEP), has also been actively advocating the adoption of stronger intellectual property rules, including the use of biotechnology.
Tukundane Cuthbert is an extension worker, someone who helps farmers improve their productivity. He outlined the promises and pitfalls of hybrid seeds as follows: "The hybrid cabbage takes only three months and then you can harvest it.
"Our traditional variety takes six months and there is no time for leaving the land fallow before you have to replant. With the hybrid cabbage, we can have more harvests per year.
"But the seed can only be used once and that is all. We could use our traditional seeds over and over again. This means that at the end of the season (when we have used hybrid seeds), we have to buy new seeds. Those of us who are poor and can't go to the market then cannot eat. Or we have to borrow and it is difficult to get collateral.
"The hybrid seeds are high yielding, but we cannot afford to buy the technology and maintain it. I wish the government would empower the local researchers to own the technology,' Cuthbert said.
Another extension worker, John Kisembo, who works with Caritas in Uganda, was even more sceptical about the wonders of hybrid seeds. Caritas is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organisations.
According to Kisembo, "we are promoting indigenous seeds because there is a sustainability issue here. You can plant them over decades and they always germinate.
"Our traditional varieties are also more resilient. The challenge we have is to improve the soil management practices farmers use. When there is good soil management, the traditional seeds do well. We also need research in organic agriculture and ways to control diseases.
"The threat of hybrid seeds is not only that it is inorganic, but those promoting it are also advocating the use of other (chemical) inputs. This is a form of agriculture that is very expensive for our farmers,' Kisembo said.
If the bill is passed by the parliament, the protection of breeders' rights is likely to further increase the availability of hybrid seeds on the market. As this happens over time, certain forms of traditional seeds will become scarce, threatening the biodiversity of the country and the region as well as the financial viability of farming for the rural poor.
(end of Part 1)
TRADE-UGANDA:
EXPOSING 'THE AFRICAN GREEN REVOLUTION'
Analysis by Aileen Kwa
GENEVA, Feb 21 (IPS) -- Uganda's major trade partners are not only looking for food markets but also for seed markets. This has happened in a push that has been packaged as "the new green revolution' by corporations involved in biotechnology and chemicals. They have been supported by philanthropic organizations, notably the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Another such organisation is the Yara Foundation which was established in 2005 by Yara International, the world's leading supplier of mineral fertilizers. This Norwegian company is the only international fertilizer producer which has had a significant presence in Africa over the past 25 years.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) also promotes hybrid seeds through its myriad projects in African countries, particularly funding to governments' agricultural research institutions. It influences their direction and agenda, as is happening in Uganda. Other donors are also involved, such as the German government.
Last but perhaps of most critical importance is the World Bank. It has played a pivotal role in promoting its liberalization agenda since the 1980s. This had led to the opening up of African countries to agricultural inputs.
Under its influence the seed market across Africa has been privatised, preparing the ground for the entry of private companies. The presence of seed corporations is felt but is hidden.
Researcher Elenita Dano writes in her publication "Unmasking the New Green Revolution in Africa: Motives, Players and Dynamics' that "agricultural chemical and biotechnology corporations have notably downplayed their role in the push for a New Green Revolution...
"(They) appear to remain on the sidelines, even as they quietly push their agenda forward through a myriad of partnerships with public research institutions, non-government organizations and farmers' organizations...'
Dano says that, having learnt from their experience in Asia, these corporations have allowed "public research institutions to be at the forefront in Africa, along with their philanthropic backers.
"Corporations have also managed to subtly plant their most sophisticated operators in philanthropy as well as in the international agricultural research centres in an effective way so as to directly influence decision-making and research priorities,' according to Dano.
Furthermore, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) set up the African Seed Trade Association (AFSTA) as a local lobby group for the transnational seed industry.
AFSTA's mandate is to "promote regional integration and harmonization of seed policies and regulations supportive of U.S. seed trade', with an explicit target of securing a five percent increase in US seed exports to the region within its first five years', according to a publication of the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development. As mentioned, Uganda is one of the targeted countries. Its seed market is relatively small compared to other African countries (annual domestic sales of 6 million dollars in 2005 compared to South Africa's 217 million dollars and Kenya's 50 million dollars).
It sits next door to the much bigger Kenyan market and at the centre of the East African Community's market. Seed exports are already flowing from Kenya to Uganda.
Before the structural adjustment reforms of the 1990s, the government essentially oversaw and subsidized the production of new seed varieties and their distribution to farmers. The National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) produced the new varieties and released them to the Uganda Seed Project for processing and multiplication.
The Uganda Seed Project also had the responsibility for marketing and distribution to farmers. All of this changed through the 1990s as a result of structural adjustment policies, the belief in liberalized markets and the lobbying efforts of both the US government and US philanthropic organisations.
The Uganda Seed Project and the formal seed market have become privatized. There are now about 10 private seed companies operating in the country.
Donor governments, philanthropic organizations, the World Bank and Ugandan politicians and bureaucrats have all had a hand in providing the funds, changing the policy context and drafting new laws. They have shifted institutional priorities towards the privatisation of seeds and, in small but sure steps, towards embracing biotechnology.
USAID supports a project in Uganda known as the "Uganda Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Programme' (APEP) which promotes the use of biotechnology. According to the APEP website, "USAID-Uganda provides support to enable the country fully utilize the potentials of biotechnology in the overall economic development strategy.'
Its objectives are to support the development of a national biotechnology policy and implementation strategies, including research and design, technology transfer, biosafety and intellectual property rights; and to facilitate strategic collaboration and business partnership with public and private biotechnology organizations.
Early in 2007, an article in a Ugandan newspaper reported that the Rockefeller and Gates foundations had donated 150 million dollars to Uganda for the "Green Revolution' programme.
With the handing over of the donation in January 2007), Dr. Joseph De Vries of the Rockefeller Foundation announced that the "donation is aimed at causing a Green Revolution in Africa to fight starvation and famine'. He directed an appeal at seed companies to utilize the funding once the programme was launched.
(end of Part 2)
GOING FURTHER (compiled by GRAIN)
GRAIN, "A new Green Revolution for Africa?", GRAIN
briefing, November 2007, 7 pp.
English:
http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=205
Français:
http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=206
Materials from a joint meeting on climate change, hunger,
rural development and agroecological alternatives to the
Green Revolution held in Sélingué, Mali, on 6
November - 2 December 2007 and organised by Climate Network
Africa, International Alliance Against Hunger, More and
Better, Union Nacional de Camponeses Mozambique,
Coordination Nationale des Organisations Paysannes,
IRPAD-Mali, African Centre for Biosafety, FoodFirst, Terra
Nuova and Development Fund.
http://www.moreandbetter.org/Mali-sem/Documents_Mali.html
Elenita C. Dano, "Unmasking the new
Green Revolution in Africa: Motives, players and
dynamics", Third World Network, Church Development Service
and African Centre for Biosafety, 2007, 68 pp.
Online
at
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/par/Unmasking.the.green.re
volution.pdf
Or order from
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/books/green.revolution.in.
africa.htm
African Union, "Model law on
rights of local communities, farmers, breeders and
access", formally endorsed in 2000.
http://www.grain.org/brl/?docid=798&lawid=2132