As you're probably aware, my party is reserving judgment on CETA until we see the details of the text. That makes sense when we have any kind of agreement.
I have here an op-ed by the president of the National Farmers Union, Terry Boehm, which appeared in the Union Farmer Quarterly in the spring of 2013. He talks about UPOV 91. I wouldn't mind getting your feedback on this since I'm not sure if I understand this correctly.
He starts off by saying there is pressure by the Canadian Seed Trade Association, seed companies, “to change our legislation to the much more” what he calls “restrictive UPOV 91”, and it is being sold....“...is required for Canada to have access to improved and innovative varieties”. He says it sounds good on the surface. Then he goes on to do an analysis of it.
He says that farmers cannot imagine being denied the ability to save, re-use, exchange, or sell seeds to a neighbour and plant a crop with the harvest being theirs and theirs alone. UPOV 91 wants to change all of that. It will happen through breeders’ rights which will trump farmers' privilege every time or make it so expensive farmers will not bother to save seeds any longer. He says the first right plant breeders will have is the so-called cascading right which gives plant breeders the ability to collect royalties beyond the seed itself to harvested material and even processed products. This would mean that if the farmer had used a protected variety, royalties could be collected at any time including when he sells his crop. Yet no one is defining how high the royalties would be and what would be done with them. It is not clear if the farmer would be responsible for the royalties for just the seed it took to produce the crop or for the whole crop. He mentioned these are undefined and would be left for courts to determine.
He talks about the next right, which is the ability for breeders to control the conditioning, cleaning, treating, stocking, storing, sale, import and export of seed. He says, “If a farmer cannot get his seed cleaned, he will not plant it. If he cannot store grain for the purpose of seeding, how can he exercise his so-called privilege?”
I want to give you some time to respond.