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cerned about the impact of plant intellectual property rights on U.S. agriculture 

 and world food security. 



The Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) is the U.S. version of patentlike laws 

 that are known internationally as "plant breeders' rights." As an alternative to the 

 industrial patent system, the PVPA was established to provide breeders with limit- 

 ed monopoly rights over the production, marketing and sale of new, sexually repro- 

 duced plant varieties (such as soybeans, wheat, cotton and canola) for 18 years. 



Proposed amendments to the PVPA would make the U.S. law conform with plant 

 breeders' rights laws internationally, coordinated by the Union for the Protection of 

 New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) headquartered in Geneva. The UPOV treaty gov- 

 erns the rules for granting of plant breeders' rights internationally, offering recipro- 

 cal protection for member states. 



RAFI believes that the newly revised UPOV treaty (which the United States has 

 signed, but not ratified), substantially strengthens the rights of plant breeders, at 

 the expense of farmers. We question the need to amend the PVPA to conform with 

 the 1991 UPOV treaty, and we urge Members of Congress to consider the broader 

 social and economic impacts of plant intellectual property rights on farmers, the 

 future of U.S. agriculture and world food security. RAFTs specific concerns are out- 

 lined below. 



CONCERNS 



The Farmer's Right 



What was once viewed as the farmer's inalienable right — the 10,000-year-old 

 ritual of saving seed from a harvested crop — is now jeopardized by plant patenting 

 laws at the national and international levels. 



The "farmer's exemption" or "farmer's right" has always been a prominent fea- 

 ture of the PVPA. The fundamental right of the farmer to save his/her patented 

 seed for replanting (or for resale, if the farmer is not principally in the business of 

 reselling protected varieties), was so important that, when hearings on the PVPA 

 were first held in 1970, the assurance of this right was part of the bargain made to 

 gain passage of the legislation. 



But times have changed. For one thing, there has been tremendous consolidation 

 in the U.S. seed industry. Plant breeding and seed sales are now dominated by mul- 

 tinational pharmaceutical and chemical corporations. These companies now refer to 

 the farmer's right to save seed and sell limited quantities of proprietary seed as the 

 farmer's privilege — a privilege they seek to revoke through legislative and judicial 

 means. 



Proposed amendments to the PVPA seek to eliminate the farmer's right to sell 

 limited quantities of proprietary seed to his or her neighbor. RAFI asks: How long 

 will it be before farmers lose the right to save proprietary seed for planting on their 

 own farm? 



RAFI does not support illegal brown-bagging of proprietary seed. We acknowledge 

 that some segments of the seed industry (in niche markets) have suffered as a result 

 of illegal brown-bagging. However, we feel that the proposed amendments are too 

 restrictive in dealing with the problem. 



RAFI believes that attempts to restrict the farmer's exemption under PVPA will 

 take us one step closer to total elimination of the farmer's right to save seed. The 

 seed industry acknowledges that it is both the practice of brown-bagging proprietary 

 seeds, as well as farmers saving their seed for replanting on their own holdings, 

 that erodes seed industry sales. If it becomes illegal for farmers to sell proprietary 

 seed to their neighbor, will the seed industry return to Congress a year or two from 

 now to argue that the real infringement is due to farmers saving their own seed for 

 replanting? 



It is important to point out that the newly revised UPOV treaty makes it optional 

 for member countries to allow farmers to save seed for planting on their own hold- 

 ings. If the U.S. Congress ratifies the new UPOV treaty we believe that this option 

 leaves the door wide open for a future ban on all farm-saved seed. 



Why Are We Letting an International Treaty Define the U.S. Farmer's Right To Save 

 and To Sell Limited Quantities of Seed from Their Harvest? 

 The seed industry argues that the U.S. Congress has a "moral obligation" to 

 amend the PVPA so that it conforms with the new UPOV treaty. This is because 

 the U.S. negotiating team in Geneva worked very hard to draft the new treaty. It is 

 important to point out that the U.S. negotiating team at UPOV consisted of seed 

 industry and U.S. Government representatives. It did not include U.S. farmers, and 

 it certainly did not include farmers who exercise their legal right to sell limited 

 quantities of seed to their neighbors. If the U.S. Congress has a "moral obligation," 



