Agriculture committee  Those are—

Agriculture committee  Thank you for this opportunity. Specifically I would like to see, under proposed subsection 5(1), where it lays out the nature of plant breeders' rights.... Currently farmers' privilege extends only to paragraphs (a) and (b) under proposed subsection 5(1). Under paragraph (a),

Agriculture committee  I am sorry, I'm looking at the nomenclature here. Is it proposed section 5.1, the rights respecting harvested materials?

Agriculture committee  Okay. That's a tough one to amend. I confess that is not a section that I spent a significant deal of time analyzing. Allow me to reread it.

Agriculture committee  I believe that most farmers who are doing a commercial scale of breeding are registering as seed breeders, or when they get to that point would register their new variety. I don't particularly see a barrier to that continuing, unless the regulatory framework that results from thi

Agriculture committee  Okay. He had sold some grain that was planted by another farm and it was several years down the road after he had sold it and that's why he was being sued. He didn't know what the farm had intended to do with it.

Agriculture committee  I hope I haven't given the impression that I thought it was instituting. I certainly am aware and we support plant breeders' rights insomuch as it is very important to recognize an individual's or organization's investment in bringing a new product to market and that is to the be

Agriculture committee  It very well may.

Agriculture committee  The only concern is as I said in my original presentation about unintended consequences of criminalizing things that we have traditionally done both organically and not organically speaking, the sale between farms and storing seed.

Agriculture committee  Agreed. Let me be clear that the organic council does not feel that the sky is falling, to put it in the vernacular, if this bill is passed. We're simply suggesting a few modifications and strengthening that farmer's privilege.

Agriculture committee  As you said, this legislation doesn't really address a lot of concerns. Most of the legislation is directed at very large-scale operations. For reference, my own family farm is about 600 acres, and some 400 acres of that is in vegetables that are fresh market or processing vegeta

Agriculture committee  On most farms, even in Canada—and this is the example that I was going to say; I actually read the details of a couple of the cases—farmers will sell seed, grains particularly, between farms and the farm you sell it to may use it for feed, may use it to plant as a cover crop. The

Agriculture committee  Sorry, may I finish?

Agriculture committee  Yes, Bill C-18 doesn't speak to that specifically, and I will say that I've actually spent the time to read it word for word. It was a bit of a daunting task, but there isn't anything in here that is inherently supportive of agriculture in the way that it is done organically in t

Agriculture committee  Sorry, not exactly. Are you asking for examples of court cases against small growers?