We protest against the submission of the draft amendment to the Seed and Seedling Act to the Parliament and call for its withdrawal
14 May 2020
On 3 March, the Government of Japan submitted a draft amendment to the Seed and Seedling Act to the Parliament in a cabinet decision, aiming for passage and enactment during the current parliamentary session. At a time when the country is under a declared state of emergency due to the Covid Pandemic, it can be said that the Government is again working like a firebrand to get it passed.
The focus of the amendment is to extend the ban on unauthorised self-propagation and self-seeding, which was previously limited to certain registered varieties, to all registered varieties. Penalties for non-compliance will also be strengthened. This will increase profits for seed companies, but restrict farmers’ rights and deprive them of food sovereignty. It strengthens the rights of transnational seed companies to develop genome-edited and other genetically engineered crops, threatening food security.
The Seed and Seedling Act is the national law of the UPOV Convention (International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants), which was enacted in 1961. The Convention was born out of the development of new varieties by government research institutes and large companies, as well as the move to protect the varieties developed. It is known as Plant Variety Protection (PVP) or seed patents, and has been part of intellectual property rights (IP).
As Monsanto (now Bayer AG) and other companies developed GM crops and biotechnology became central to seed development, the UPOV Convention was amended in 1991 with the main aim of protecting them, and the Seed and Seedling Act was amended in 1998 in response. The amendment to the Convention at that time prohibited in principle the self-seeding and self-propagation of registered varieties, but as each country could specify prohibited crops at its discretion, the Government initially banned only a small number of crops. The number of banned crops was still 82 in 2016, but this number began to increase the following year, reaching 387 in 2019, and is finally about to be applied to all registered varieties with the current amendments.
The ongoing trend to strengthen IP is closely linked to the national strategy being pursued by the Abe Government. The reality that those who control seeds control food has been realised by multinational companies such as Monsanto. It has been made imperative to control intellectual property in order to control seeds. This has resulted in the development of new varieties using new technologies. Genome editing technology has been placed at the heart of this.
The revision of the Seed and Seedling Act has been timed to coincide with the emergence of a new seed domination technology: genome editing technology. The ban on unauthorised self-propagation and self-seeding is to be extended to all registered varieties in order to strengthen the protection of intellectual property, which has become even more important. Strengthening Plant Variety Protection has in the past strengthened the control of seeds by corporations, including multinationals, and has deprived farmers of their rights, food sovereignty and food safety. This amendment will further amplify this situation. We protest against the submission of the Seed and Seedling Act Amendment Bill to the Parliament and call for its withdrawal.