Who owns the right to reproduce a seed? Is it the farmer who grows the crop, or the plant breeder who invests decades into developing it?
In Canada, there has been a quiet but fierce battle over this question following controversial amendments to the nation’s plant breeders’ rights (PBR) regulations. The updates expose the debate between independent growers’ autonomy and plant breeders’ intellectual property rights.
Over the years, the discussion has led to the implementation of PBR. First introduced in 1990, Canada’s PBR regulations function similarly to patents. They grant developers exclusive rights to new seed varieties, requiring growers to obtain permission and pay royalties. Historically, the law included a safeguard known as the “farmer’s privilege” clause. This legal exemption allowed farmers to save, condition, and reuse protected seeds on their own land.
However, this privilege has now shrunk. On April 23, there were controversial changes to this clause, including the removal of farmers’ privilege for fruits, vegetables, ornamentals, and hybrid seed varieties.
The move aims to incentivize companies to invest and innovate more, since private companies are likely to invest in seed breeding only if they can recoup the costs of developing a seed variety.
“Overall, the goal is a modern framework that supports innovation without losing sight of practical needs across the agricultural sector,” said a spokesperson for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), adding that the move better aligns Canada with international standards with narrower definitions of farmers privilege seen in places like the EU.
“Without clarifying what falls under farmer’s privilege, the practice can be used unfairly. For example, it would be unfair for an orchard owner to buy one apple tree and to grow 200 trees from cuttings from that one tree without seeking permission from the plant developer and paying royalties. It can take 15 to 25 years of breeding effort and significant costs before a new apple variety is ready to be released into the marketplace,” the CFIA said in a statement to The Observer.
The CFIA maintains that because seed-saving is not a longstanding custom for hybrids, fruits, and vegetables, the changes simply clarify boundaries and ensure fair compensation. They added that many of these varieties are already restricted by private commercial contracts.
“The amendments to reduce the scope of farmers’ privilege only impact fruit, vegetable, ornamental and hybrid varieties that currently hold PBR protection. In many cases, seed saving is not practical for these varieties or it is already restricted through existing commercial contracts,” said the CFIA.
Critics, however, view the regulatory shift as a dangerous precedent that erodes basic farming rights.
Terry Boehm, a farmer and former president of the National Farmers Union (NFU), questioned the law’s necessity if seed-saving is already rare for those specific crops.
“If they [farmers] aren’t [seed saving], then they’re purchasing seed, and why would you need to restrict it in such a way, so they absolutely have to purchase seed,” said Boehm.
“It’s kind of a little bit of the cart-before-the-horse argument. The other part of it is, is that even if that is the case again, why would you? Why would you need to make the regular regulatory change to make it impossible for that to take place? What’s the object?”
The NFU and 13 other agricultural organizations argue the changes threaten age-old farming practices, will drive up yearly seed prices, and will hand unprecedented control to multinational corporations.
“It’s another tool that is supposedly supposed to make things more efficient, but it really has the potential to remove power and autonomy from citizens, and this is one of the big issues of going back to the seed thing, is that for me it’s about autonomy as a farmer, the fundamental basis for thousands of years, and it’s been recognised in the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources that the farmers should have a fundamental right to save and reuse seed, and actually sell and exchange seed as well. I’ve been working this subject for decades,” said Boehm.
“I said a long time ago that those who control the seed control the food supply, and those who control the food supply ultimately control citizens, and do we trust these companies with that kind of power? That is the ongoing worry.”
While Boehm saves seed for his own 4,000-acre farm, relying on crops not currently subject to PBR, other industry figures argue that buying new seed every year is just the price of progress.
Quentin Martin, one of the owners at Cribits Seeds in West Montrose, explained that for many farmers, there is a benefit to buying seeds annually from plant breeders. While it is an extra expense, buying new seeds means they get the newest variety with higher yields and improvements.
Usually, farmers also sign a technology use agreement (TUA) to access a specific protected seed variety, or a seed variety use agreement (SVUA) to fund ongoing plant breeding and agricultural innovation.
“Basically, you’re saying, ‘Yep, I agree to use this, I’m going to have to buy my new seed every year, and you put that in your cost equation,’ and say, well, OK, is that benefit worth the cost, as opposed to using other seed that doesn’t require that? Or I can save my own seed?” said Martin.
“By virtue of the fact that over 75 per cent of the acres of soybeans in Ontario are genetically modified, where growers have agreed to sign away their right to save seed, that tells me what they’re thinking that they see the value.”
