Feb.12,2014: In Sri Lanka, civic rights groups and farmers on Tuesday called on the
government to drop a proposed law regulating seeds and other planting material, saying
it will badly impact farmers’ rights and biodiversity. They also claim it aims only
to benefit large multinational firms. Under the new law, all farmers would have to
be registered, and all seed and planting material such as fertilizers certified by
a special office run by the Department of Agriculture. This would give the government
the exclusive right to specify seed and planting material. Farmers say this would
undermine the rights of small-scale farmers who would be forced to buy seed from large
multinational firms at higher prices. “This proposed act gives the right of seed varieties
to monopolistic multinational firms and will increase the domination of multinational
seed companies,” said Chinthaka Rajapaksha, co-convener of the National Movement for
Protection of Seed Rights, an umbrella organization of 700 agricultural rights groups.
“The bill will give power to a special committee to raid farms in search of illegal
seeds,” he said, adding that this form of legislation has badly affected small scale
famers in other parts of the world. But the government says the law will protect and
conserve indigenous seed and planting material. Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Minister
of Agriculture told ucanews.com that the proposed law is to protect and regulate the
quality of seed and planting materials to protect the rights of users. However
the farmers at Tuesday’s meeting said they would petition the agricultural minister
and other government officials to protect farmers’ rights to continue using their
own seeds and fertilizers. Source: Ucan