This is a CTP of initiative: Red de Semillas (Spain)
This CTP consists of the effects of the International Seed Treaty on the dynamic use of local varieties. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, popularly known as the International Seed Treaty, is a comprehensive international agreement, which aims at guaranteeing food security through the conservation, exchange and sustainable use of the world's plant genetic resources for food and agriculture as well as the fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from its use. It also recognises farmers' rights. Article 9 is related to the farmers’ rights, and its recognition in Spain is one of the main demands of Red de Semillas. "Farmers have the right to produce, sell and exchange their own seeds, and this must be respected by the national governments." According to the Treaty, national governments must work on the protection of the traditional knowledge. Moreover government has to provide opportunity for the farmers to participate in the policy-making process and the management of plant genetic resources. This Treaty was the first international law that recognized farmers rights. Its relevance is outstanding. Despite the fact, that the implementation of certain parts is depending on the national governments only. Red de Semillas tries to draw the attention of the politicians to respect this article and to develop it at the national level.
This CTP connects to the lobby activities of the organization. RdS often refers to the Treaty especially to article 9 which related to farmers' rights when they negotiate with the Government. "Even it is an article that depends on the national laws; we demand to politicians that they have to take that article into consideration as farmers' rights have to be recognized." After the adoption of the new seed legislation in Spain - which contains elements from the Treaty, - the Government did not carry on the work: "they have not elaborated the technical regulation that develops farmers´right in the Spanish legislation".
Earlier events that were crucial to the CTP to happen: in 1992, when the UN Convention on Biological Diversity was signed, the discussion about biodiversity was in the spotlight at international level. The First Report of the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture was published by FAO in 1996. It was prepared through a participatory, country-driven process. It revealed that in the past century the world lost the 75% of its agricultural biodiversity.
Follow-up events evoked by or related to the CTP: Spain ratified the Treaty and the last Spanish law, dated from 2006 (Law 30/2006), includes aspects from the Treaty. Some of them (like farmers´rights), unfortunately have still not been developed.
The CTP presents the disagreement over the issue of the local varieties between RdS and the Government. Since the Spanish law has been adopted in the 2006, the legal framework established to the work. But this law was not created to support the spread of the local varieties. For the Spanish Government the dynamic use of plant genetic resources by farmers is not a priority. "It is not a priority, we are a country that has more surfaces with GMO than the other European countries; the priority is not to work with local varieties, the priority is the industrial production." Representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture are confronted the lack of support for the local varieties at those seminars, which are organized by Red de Semillas. "… a representative came from the Ministry and we could explain them that nothing has been happened for 11 years in terms of public policies and legislation which could support the issue of local varieties …"
At the time when the CTP happened the members of RdS felt that finally they had a Treaty which they could refer to. After the International Seed Treaty was adopted in 2004, people dealing with the promotion of local varieties were a litle bit optimistic about the future. As the years passed, it became obvious, that they cannot work effectively since article of the farmers’ right has not been developed in a proper way. The concept of the Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic Resources (Article 6 of the Treaty) did not prove useful either, because it doesn’t define what means sustainable use. Moreover the concept of sustainable use of PGR of the industry and the civil society can be very different: "there are some people developing GMOs and they think that this is sustainable use and for me it is not."
The CTP created important learning opportunities for RdS. They realized that having an international treaty was a good base which they could refer to when they attempted to persuade politicians to deal with local seed issues, but there were two significant problems related to the Treaty which became barriers in their lobby activities: 1. article 9 is suborninated to national laws of the countries; 2. Article 6 do not define clearly the sustainable use of the local varieties.
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