Canada's evolving seed regime: relations of industry, state, and seed savers.

Abstract

The world's agro-diversity is based on the traditional practices of growers saving and selecting seeds; however, a different understanding of the value of seeds and growers has taken hold within Canada's contemporary seed regime. The contemporary Canadian seed system is characterized by state-facilitated corporate control. In this evolving seed regime, saving seed becomes an anachronistic practice that limits production by using old (less valuable) seed varieties and techniques, and seeds are valued only as potential profit-making property. However, seeds and seed saving are valuable, if often overlooked, factors in efforts to re/build alternative food networks. This paper explores the context and practices of seed saving within Canada by examining governmental and industry proposals for changing the seed system and by outlining a few examples of how seed savers and their supporters are acting to challenge the existing regime while also creating an alternative.

La diversite agricole est fondee sur les pratiques ancestrales des cultivateurs qui recueillaient et selectionnaient les semences. Toutefois, une comprehension differente de la valeur des semences et des cultivateurs a maintenant cours au sein du regime actuel de semences du Canada. Le systeme de semences contemporain du Canada est caracterise par un controle par les societes, facilite par I'Etat. Dans ce regime de semences en pleine evolution, preserver les semences devient une pratique anachronique ou la production est limitee, par I'utilisation de varietes anciennes (et donc moins avantageuses) de semences et de techniques anciennes, et ou les semences ne sont valorisees qu'en tant que sources potentielles de profit. Toutefois, les semences et la preservation des semences sont des facteurs precieux, bien que souvent passes sous silence, dans les initiatives visant a (re)batir des reseaux alimentaires de remplacement. L'auteure de cet article explore le contexte et la pratique de la preservation des semences au Canada, en examinant les propositions du gouvernement et de I'industrie de modifier le systeme de semence et en mettant en lumiere quelques examples de la maniere dont agissent les personnes qui conservent les semences, et celles qui les appuient, pour remettre en question le regime existant tout en creant une solution de rechange.

Keywords

Seed systems, seed saving, seed policy, corporate control

Introduction

Humanity's survival, both biological and cultural, is intimately and inherently tied up with seeds. Seed saving is a short-hand term for a complex set of relations between growers and seeds. This set of relations includes the planting, tending, harvesting, storing, eating, and replanting of seeds as well as the attendant processes of exchanging (as gifts, trades, sales) and experiential knowledge-building. Growers in countries with dominantly industrial agri-food systems and developed commercial seed markets, like Canada, are not expected to continue saving seed; rather, as participants in "modern" agri-food systems, they are expected to purchase their seeds each year as inputs. However, studies of seed saving in global North contexts have begun to appear (see Vellve 1992; Nazarea 2005; Mascarenhas and Busch 2006) suggesting that seed saving practices are relevant to global North contexts as well, in ways both related to and distinct from those applicable in global South contexts. Although still neglected, seed issues are slowly gaining attention in Canada. Recent proposed changes to Canadian legislation regarding seeds, intensified industry lobbying and concentration, and concerns about food more generally have all contributed to a raised profile of seed issues.

Canada has experienced several different seed regimes, each leaving traces that carry through the next. Kuyek (2004) identifies four Canadian seed regimes: indigenous; European immigrant farm-based seed networks in the 19th century; state-sponsored public systems beginning in the late 19th century; and the emerging current regime. The latest seed regime began to emerge in the 1970s and is characterized by state-facilitation of corporate strategies to enclose the seed system (Kuyek 2004) through commercialization and privatization. During this period several initiatives have combined to ensure that the seed industry has been increasingly involved in policy formation, that a cultural change took place within the public sector such that marketability of research is prioritized, and that public-private partnerships are used for agri-food research (Moore 2002, 116). By 1990 the federal government was convinced that intellectual property rights (IPRs) for seeds were fundamental to ensuring a strong agri-food sector. The Canadian government seems to assume that corporate objectives are in the national interest, and with this assumption it continues to act to revise various regulations and policies as well as provide monetary and in-kind support to the seed industry. The multinational seed industry, for its part, plays an increasingly strong role in policy-making and in the control of seeds (and growers). The continuing shift within Canada toward a neo-liberal seed system is not an isolated incident; rather, it is part of international trends within seed systems.

While seed saving has certainly become less practiced in Canada as the contemporary seed regime has gained prominence, until the 1970s it was widely practiced. And, despite seed industry and governmental efforts to contain seed saving (in political and biological ways), some growers continue to save their seeds and work together to support their practices. Seed saving is undertaken by growers (gardeners as well as small and large-scale farmers) for various reasons including potential economic, food security, social, and ecological benefits. As seeds and seed saving practices are further enclosed by state-facilitated corporate control, these benefits (among others) are threatened. In this paper I outline some of the initiatives of government and industry to solidify the emerging neo-liberal seed regime, and then indicate some of the measures seed savers are taking to continue their own practices in the face of these threats.

State Facilitation of Corporate Control through Policy

Canada is a signatory to several international agreements dealing with seeds, and the saving of seed, each of which serve to order relations between people and seeds. The international agreements of which Canada is a negotiator and signatory are significant to the directions of domestic legislation. In general, Canada strongly argues, along with the U.S., against the inclusion of farmers' rights provisions in domestic and international agreements (Richards 2007; Whatmore 2002). The specifics of these international agreements, although important, are beyond the scope of this paper; herein I concentrate instead on domestic legislation, and particularly on the changes to seed policy that are being proposed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), an agency within the Ministry of Agriculture and Agri-Food. In Canada seeds are governed by several federal legislative Acts and regulations, the most important of which are the Seeds Act and Regulations, which deals with the registration of seeds for commercial activities, and the Plant Breeders' Rights Act (PBR Act) and Patent Act, which offer ways of assigning intellectual property rights to seeds (or their component parts). In recent years the Canadian government has proposed several strategic changes to the seed regime in order to "modernize" the Canadian framework, making it more flexible and commerce-friendly. The proposed changes to the PBR Act and the Seeds Act and Regulations move toward stronger intellectual property protection and weaker seed approval criteria, and are limited in their involvement of the public. These changes and their consultation processes offer more opportunity to the powerful seed-related industry, and also reinforce a view of seeds as commercial, economic goods and seed saving as anachronistic, or in some extreme cases, criminal.

The first piece of legislation governing seeds in Canada was enacted in 1905 to set basic standards for seed quality. Over the years there have been several important additions to the Act, including the introduction of merit criteria and the need for detailed variety descriptions. Today's Seeds Act and Regulations are administered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). These policies govern seed sales, including imports, and seed testing, inspection, and quality. (1) The latest policy proposals of the CFIA are aimed at modernizing the Seeds Act, and include a set of proposals dealing primarily with consultation and variety registration. Regarding consultation, the main proposal is that the already established National Forum on Seeds be formally recognized as the consultative body for policy-making on seed issues. Although there are some exceptions, such as the National Farmers' Union, primary membership of the Forum is made up of industry organizations and representatives. Although the CFIA (2006a: 17) recognizes that "agricultural producers are directly affected by seed policies and regulation" and that these policies "are no longer only of interest to agricultural producers and the major national associations of the seed industry," this does not seem to translate into changes in the practices of consultation. The second and third categories of the CFIA's proposals to change Canada's seed registration system relate specifically to variety registration. The CFIA proposes two primary changes to make the registration system faster and more flexible: first, a tiered system for variety registration; and second, an expanded and expedited approach to contract registration. In particular, the CFIA's recommendations include things like: expanding contract registration of varieties; removal of merit criteria for some crops and optional merit criteria for others; and, reliance of government upon third party data of assessment and of variety recommendation. While these proposals do not exactly reflect what industry has proposed, each substantially moves in the direction sought by the corporate seed sector (see CSTA 2006). Each of these suggestions (among others) indicates a further move of government out of seed governing, leaving industry increasingly to make decisions about Canada's seed sector and future.

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