I'll start off. If I speak too quickly, interpreters, please wave your arms at me, because I have been accused of doing that before. I have only two minutes, so you have to listen fast.
We're sharing our time with two of our members, C&M Seeds and Canterra Seeds.
I would just like to say I'm very happy to be here, and I'm very pleased that you made accommodations to bring us in, when we were scheduled for last week. We did provide a very detailed submission in both official languages. I'm just going to make some really brief comments, and then I'll turn it over to Erin and Archie.
Bill C-18 is very important for the seed sector and the seed sector is very important to Canada. Seed is the foundation for Canada's innovative agricultural sector, delivering increased productivity and market opportunities for farmers, and healthy, affordable fibre, fuel, and food for Canadians.
The Canadian Seed Trade Association brings together 130 seed company members that are involved in all aspects of seed from research, plant breeding, trait and variety development, to production, marketing, sales, and international trade. I must add that we also have members that are single farm family seed producer retailers. We have organic seed producers and users of organic seed, and yes, we do represent the large multinationals and everything in between.
CSTA welcomes the provisions in Bill C-18. Amendments to the Seeds Act to allow for incorporation by reference and to accept science-based data generated in other countries in approval systems could help to ensure that our farmers have access to new varieties in a more efficient and timely manner, and we support those provisions.
I would like, however, to focus on the bill's proposed amendments to plant breeders' rights. We have shown over and over again that where our members can generate a return and recover their costs in research and plant breeding, we do invest. In fact, in 2012 our members invested over $110 million in plant breeding and variety development in Canada.
Most of that investment, however, close to 90%, came in three crops: canola, corn, and soybeans. That's where our breeders can generate a return, because they can use a variety of intellectual property protection tools to generate funds for investment. Breeders of crops like cereals and flax, pulse crops, and special crops have access to plant breeders' rights only to protect their varieties.
Due to our outdated plant breeders' rights legislation, companies with an interest in these crops have chosen to invest elsewhere. Added to that is the fact that plant breeders outside of our borders won't send their varieties here for testing, because our plant breeders' rights legislation has not kept pace with the rest of the world.
I'd like to turn to my colleagues now, because they are the ones who are actually experiencing the impacts of outdated plant breeders' rights legislation.