Changes in National Seed Amendment Act draft demanded

Islamabad
Agriculture experts, students and the civil society demand drastic changes in final draft of National Seed Amendment Act 2014 to incorporate genuine concerns of small farmers, agriculture specialists, scholars and the civil society.
Addressing the participants of a ‘Consultation on National Seed Policy’ held on Tuesday, Acting Country Director ActionAid Pakistan Daud Saqlain said that the imminent passage of National Seed Amendment Act 2014 would indirectly harm the basic spirit of 18th Amendment which empowered provinces to do direct legislation in agriculture sector.
Daud Saqlain said that the civil society and agriculture specialists including scientists, scholars, students and above all the small farmers should adopt a proactive approach of constructive engagement with the government particularly the concerned officials and departments to make them realize that certain provision of the proposed act were hostile and unfriendly to the interests of small farmers.
An agriculture experts and executive director of Lok Sanjh Dr. Shahid Zia, said that a few multinational companies doing business in agriculture research and products were influencing the government to pass the proposed National Seed Amendment 2014 in haste so that concerns of small farmers and the civil society were not entertained.
He alleged that the proposed act (if passed) would be a threat to national food security because it not only aimed at destroying local seed resource by modifying it genetically rather it imposed certain limitations on small farmers to buy the seed from open market each year and to abandon using and exchanging his/her own seed. After local seeds would be genetically engineered, application of Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIP) would become mandatory which would have serious implications for small scale farmers.
Wali Haider from Roots for Equity said that the public representatives and the government officials should be considerate to insecurities and worries of the small farmers who will be deprived of their indigenous source of free, cheap and climate effective seed just because the multinational companies would be legally empowered (after passage of the proposed act) to genetically modify the local seed and declare it their property.
The consultation session was interactive as it allowed participants to share their observations and concerns. Most of the participants were of the view that a comprehensive action plan should be worked out to strengthen the ongoing famers’ led campaign against the proposed passage of National Seed Amendment Act 2014. They said that the civil society should adopt more constructive approach of effective engagement with the government so that small farmers concerns are incorporated in the proposed act.