Farmers want seed modernization to remain public, SAPCA told

By Dale Woodard LETHBRIDGE HERALD on April 20, 2021.

Going the public route is key to ensure seed modernization continues to grow.
Lynn Jacobson, President, Alberta Federation of Agriculture, was the guest speaker as the Southern Alberta Council of Public Affairs held its online conference Thursday morning, discussing the many challenges facing Alberta’s and Canada’s farmers. Among the topics covered included research and funding, carbon tax, business risk management, Ag Stability changes, Canadian Grain Act review, seed modernization, and rail road crossings.
Speaking on the topic of seed modernization, Jacobson said keeping the process public and not private is the consensus among the producers.
“Seed modernization basically comes down to the UPOV of 1991 issues, which is legislation that basically addresses patent protection around intellectual property and physical property,” he said, referring to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants.
“With the passing of that legislation in UPOV of 1991, the government went ahead and consulted with only certain segments of the industry and that was more on the seed trade industry on seed modernization.”
Jacobson said the government came up with a plan they thought was acceptable and presented that plan. 
“But one of the models they talked about was the French model where intellectual property in UPOV of 1991 is recognized and as they go forward with their model it would shift more of the emphasis of seed development onto the private industry,” he said. “It would take some of their investment out of seed development and give more weight to the private industry end of it. It was also going to introduce a trailing royalty on seed. That’s really a large issue for us in Canada and for Canadian producers.”
Jacobson said as Candian producers that when they buy certified seed, they own that seed and have the right to use it the next year under the Farmer’s Seed Act.
“The trailing royalty was basically saying ‘You can buy your seed and you can use that seed, but every time you use that seed, how many bushels you use to seed on your farm, you have to pay another royalty on it.’ We did some calculations on that and right now in Western Canada there is about $8 million a year spent on certified seeding that producers purchase. With a trailing royalty, it was going to raise that payment up to $50 million and that was in perpetuity of 20 years on a variety. So there was a huge difference and that’s what we were looking at.”
Jacobson said at those meetings when the producers had a look at the system that was being proposed “there was quite a blow up.” 
“Some of the meetings got pretty rambunctious. I think it was a surprise for the federal government that the reaction was out there because while they’ve been talking about this, a lot of people hadn’t been paying attention (until) it was actually brought public.”
Jacobson said the General Farm Organization sent out a survey to the three prairie provinces.
The results were heavily in favour of public funding.
“It overwhelmingly came back that farmers were not willing to go for a seed trading royalty system and they did not want the government to back away from public funding,” said Jacobson. “They wanted to keep that system going.
“We as producers have been very satisfied with the public system. In fact, the top varieties in Canada and many of the top varieties used in the States come out of Canadian research.” 
Jacobson said producers have been looking at the different systems and know in the long run they’re going to have to start putting a little bit more money into research if they want to keep public research active and they’re going to have to up their ante as producers in the future. 
“We don’t want to turn our seeding system over to the private industry or private companies. We’ve looked at some of the models of turning it over to the private trade and (one) that has been talked about is the canola model. The federal government basically got the variety and they then turn it over to the private industry and the private industry has controlled that. Some of the prices a lot of producers feel is maybe a little bit exorbitant and very pricey,” he said.
“So some of our motivation is looking at that type of model and saying ‘We don’t want that type of model for the rest of our industry as we go forward.'”
Jacobson said it shows how important, in the producer’s mind, how public dollars and the research done is beneficial not just as producers, but also the general public for food production going forward. 
“One of the things that has always been said is that by 2050 we’re going to have to double our food production as agriculture-exporting countries to feed the world,” said Jacobson. “We may not have to double our production, but we are going to have to look at different means of producing food more efficiently as we go forward and we feel the public part of that research is very important in that whole process. I think in the future it’s going to be a combination of private companies being able to invest and if they produce a variety producers like, they can put a trailing royalty on it. But as their variety, we don’t put any of our money into it, but we feel as producers that if public money has gone into it and producer money has gone into it, we don’t want to go down that other route to privatization.”

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