The Crop Varieties Registered in Canada and Plant Breeders’ Rights Status database was created by the Canadian Seed Trade Association with the assistance of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s variety registration office and the plant breeders’ rights office.

Using the database, seed sector value chain members can easily identify the PBR status of a crop variety with a few simple steps. Users can search specifically by crop kind, variety name, and by the type of PBR protection. The full database is available at cdnseed.org.

The type of PBR protection is indicated by two certification marks: UPOV 1978 or UPOV 1991. “We encourage members and stakeholders to check the database frequently,” said seed trade association president Scott Horner.

“We also hope everyone continues to visit www.pbrfacts.ca to review the opportunities and obligations relevant to all of us under the new Plant Breeders’ Rights legislation.”

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Canterra Seeds and French farmer co-operative Limagrain on Thursday announced they would further tie up their wheat variety commercialization work through a new joint seed breeding and development business.

The two companies said their new cereal breeding and development partnership, to be named Limagrain Cereals Research Canada, will be based in Saskatoon.

Limagrain — which has already worked with Canterra since 2012, through an exclusive license deal for commercialization of wheat varieties — also said Thursday it will buy a minority stake in Canterra, including rights to name representatives to Canterra’s board of directors.

Both deals are expected to be completed by the end of September, subject to conditions such as the usual due diligence — and a requirement “that there be no changes to Bill C-18,” Canada’s federal Agricultural Growth Act.

“There is no understating the importance of this deal to Canadian agriculture,” Canterra CEO David Hansen said in a release.

Passed in February, C-18 — which, among other things, tightened up Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) legislation — “has opened up a whole new world of wheat,” he said.

“Our farmers can now buy and grow varieties that they couldn’t access before. For us as seed marketers, this is obviously an opportunity, but the opportunities are much greater for our customers, the producers.”

The Limagrain Cereals j.v. is expected to bring “significant added value” to the Prairie grain sector through development of new varieties of cereals, with a specific focus on wheat and use of “the most advanced technologies currently available.”

Passage of C-18 earlier this year, and Ottawa’s recent related move to ratify UPOV 91 (the 1991 International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants), puts Canada “finally on a level playing field with the rest of the international plant breeding community,” Hansen said in a separate federal government release.

France’s Limagrain already bills itself as the fourth largest seed company in the world and a top player in wheat and other cereals.

“Western Canada’s expertise in cereal breeding is globally recognized,” Bruno Carette, Limagrain Field Seeds’ CEO, said in the two companies’ release Thursday.

“We are proud to bring our cereal breeding expertise to Saskatoon — a hub for cereal development in Canada — and work collaboratively to breed advanced wheat genetics for farmers in Western Canada.”

“Today’s partnership announcement is a great example of how the Agricultural Growth Act is delivering for Canadian producers,” federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said at the j.v. announcement Thursday.

“Bringing Canada’s seed regulations up-to-date has created opportunities for new investment in crop breeding in Canada,” Rosetown, Sask. farmer Jim Wickett, chair of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers, said in a separate release Thursday.

The planned Canterra/Limagrain venture “demonstrates the value of creating a policy environment that encourages investment,” he said. “Prairie wheat growers will be the main beneficiaries.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Canada’s representatives to the World Trade Organization, on Friday in Geneva, deposited the government’s “instrument of ratification” for the 1991 Act of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV ’91).

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Monday the move finalizes one of the main measures of the government’s Agricultural Growth Act, which was passed this spring and brought Canada’s plant breeding legislation in line with the UPOV ’91 Convention.

“With the ratification of UPOV ’91, plant breeders have more protection and farmers have better access to a wider variety of seeds,” the government said in a release Monday.

The treaty, the government said, “encourages increased investment in plant breeding and brings Canada in line with trading partners, allowing Canadian farmers to be more competitive in the global marketplace.”

“We have been operating under the UPOV ’91 Convention since February, but now it has been announced to the world,” Canadian Seed Trade Association president Dave Baute said in a separate release.

“After 22 years of hard work, Canada’s formal ratification of the 1991 UPOV Convention places the agricultural sector solidly on the world stage and confirms that the door is open for international and domestic collaboration and innovation.”

Since the Act was passed in late February, the CSTA and other crop commodity groups said Monday, “new varieties of wheat, oats, flax, and potatoes, that would never have come to Canada without the updates to Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) legislation, have become available.”

PBR is federally-mandated intellectual property protection for plant breeders who develop new plant varieties and want to sell and collect royalties from the sale of seed or plant genetics.

Canada, the government said Monday, has already seen a 20 per cent increase in the number of PBR applications since the Agricultural Growth Act came into force this year.

Formal UPOV ’91 ratification, the groups said, “confirms to the world that Canada supports an agricultural sector that is sustainable and competitive and that investment is welcome domestically and internationally.”

“Stronger intellectual property rights have proven to provide greater incentives to increase investment in research and development for Canada’s crop sector, giving our farmers greater access to the newest crop varieties,” Ritz said.

Critics of UPOV ’91 such as Canada’s National Farmers Union have said the treaty will make it “much more difficult” for farmers to save and reuse seed, forces them to pay more for seed and consolidates control over seed with the “world’s largest agribusiness corporations.”

Bringing PBR in line with UPOV ’91, the government said, doesn’t change what farmers are allowed to do with respect to protected plant varieties, but is meant to “facilitate a breeder’s ability to enforce his/her rights on protected plant varieties.”

The government has also said Canada’s UPOV-based PBR legislation enshrines the “farmers’ privilege,” allowing farmers to save, clean, treat and store seed produced from a protected plant variety and use it for replanting on their own farms.

“If farmers are obtaining seed of a protected variety legitimately, then there will be no increased liability.” — AGCanada.com Network

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The April 30 PBRO Plant Varieties Journal on the CFIA website lists three new PBR91 wheat varieties, two oats varieties, one flax variety and six potato varieties. CSTA says there are different obligations associated with the new PBR91 varieties, which can be found at pbrfacts.ca.

“We are entering a new era of opportunity with PBR91,” CSTA president Dave Baute said in a release. “But with the opportunity comes obligations.”

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Immediately after the bill received royal assent Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz tabled a treaty in Parliament to ratify the UPOV 91 Convention (the 1991 Convention of the International Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties), the international standard for plant breeders’ rights (PBR).

Being party to UPOV 91 will encourage more plant breeding in Canada and bring in more plant germplasm, resulting in higher yields and bigger profits for farmers, Ritz said Friday at a separate event celebrating the legislation, at Canterra Seeds in Winnipeg.

Proponents of Ritz’s package of legislative amendments, which will align Canadian PBR with UPOV ’91, hail the legislation as offering opportunities for increased investment and delivery of new varieties both from plant breeders operating in and outside of Canada.

Partners in Innovation, an umbrella group of ag commodity groups backing the amendments, said Friday the new law will ensure farmers have access to “new and improved varieties developed in Canada and internationally.”

“Many Prairie farmers have benefited from private investment in canola, corn and soybeans,” Mike Bast, Manitoba vice-president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, said at the Winnipeg event.

“I’ve seen those benefits firsthand in each of these crops. We now have an opportunity to see similar benefits from new investment in the breeding of wheat, barley and other crops.”

The legislation has the support of all “relevant” farm organizations, Ritz said. The list includes the Canadian Canola Growers Association, Alberta Wheat Commission, Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Grain Growers of Canada, Western Canadian Wheat Growers and Cereals Canada.

“Rights and responsibilities”

The legislation will also “further enhance the contribution of Canadian fresh fruit and vegetable growers to healthy diets for Canadian families,” Keith Kuhl, president of the Canadian Horticultural Council, said in Partners in Innovation’s release.

Fruit and vegetable growers, he said, will be able to “access new and innovative crop varieties developed internationally while encouraging domestic plant breeding and the development of Canadian varieties that can compete in international markets.”

The Canadian Seed Trade Association also supports the act, adding Friday it plans to run an outreach and education campaign “to make sure everyone understands their rights and responsibilities” under Ritz’s amendments.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) has long opposed the legislation, fearing it will allow seed companies to charge farmers more and restrict farmers from saving grain from their own crops for seed.

“I cannot stress enough that amendments to the plant breeders’ rights act allow for farmers to retain the right to save, clean, and store seed for their own operations,” Ritz said. “There seems to be some confusion around that.”

UPOV’91 will not result in Canadian farmers getting access to more varieties and higher yields, according to Terry Boehm, chair of NFU’s seed and trade committee.

“With increased rights to plant breeders we will only see increased costs to farmers and even greater domination by the giant seed companies that are so inefficient that they need enhanced plant breeders rights to stay in business,” he wrote in an email.

“Farmers will rue the day when they see their so-called privilege diminished over time.”

Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) president Dan Mazier said in an interview he hopes farmers will get a major say in developing the regulations under the act.

The Manitoba farmers’ group, he said, “feels if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

Ritz told reporters farmers and other “industry stakeholders” will be consulted on the regulations.

Among other groups, the Alberta Wheat Commission hailed the bill’s passage, but noted its support to PBR amendments is on three conditions.

Farmers, the commission said Friday, must maintain the ability to use farm-saved seed, and federal government funding of pre-breeding and genetic research must be maintained.

Thirdly, the commission said, the “farmer and public equity stake in Canada’s proprietary genetic material for cereals developed over the past 100 years continues to be recognized.”

— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator based at Miami, Man. Includes files from Co-operator reporter Shannon VanRaes in Winnipeg, Commodity News Service Canada and AGCanada.com Network staff.

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“I hope to debunk some of the myths that are out there…,” Anthony Parker told the Prairie Grain Development Committee’s annual meeting in Winnipeg Feb. 26.

“Farmers’ privilege (to save seed) is clearly entrenched in legislation and there are no immediate changes planned.”

A selling point for some for amending Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights legislation through Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act, is the notion that it will allow plant breeders to collect so-called “end-use royalties” on farmers’ grain when delivered to the elevator. But Parker said while the law allows for end-point royalties, they are not automatically invoked after C-18 becomes law.

“There will have to be strong support from the farmer community to do this,” he said later in an interview.

There’s confusion about end-point royalties because the new law allows breeders to seek compensation from harvested crops grown from illegal seed — so-called brown-bagged seed, which is seed grown without compensating the breeder.

“The intent here is really about reducing infringement (of plant breeders’ rights),” Parker said. “It is not a legislated basis for end-point royalties.”

The new law does not affect the ability of farmers who buy seed and pay a royalty to the breeder to save seed from their harvest to plant future crops so long as they have not signed an agreement not to save seed. However, they can’t sell or trade that seed to other farmers for planting.

Brown-bagged seed

Brown-bag seed is already illegal under Canada’s plant breeders’ rights legislation, which conforms to UPOV ’78 (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants). The new law will extend breeders’ rights allowing breeders to seek compensation at different points in the value chain, “if, and only if” they weren’t compensated when the seed was purchased.

While most farm groups support the legislation — some with provisos — the National Farmers Union (NFU) fears farmers’ traditional right to save seed is at risk. Not so, said Parker in an interview: “Again, that continued practice of farm-saved seed is completely permitted to happen with the legislative amendments.”

But former NFU president Terry Boehm notes the legislation refers to farm-saved seed as a “privilege” not a “right.” And according to Boehm it’s a “hollow privilege” because the new legislation prevents farmers from stocking seed.

“Stocking,” which means stockpiling seed for future sale, is different than “storing,” Parker said.

“There’s nothing in the act that would preclude the act of storing seed on farm to use in subsequent years (as seed by farmers),” he said.

From the Manitoba Co-operator website: Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) and Bill C-18

Explicit

Under current legislation farm-saved seed is “implicit,” Parker said. But because breeders’ rights are being expanded beyond seed sales, the farmer’s ability to save seed needs to be “explicit” in the new law, he said.

Boehm also notes that the legislation allows the federal cabinet to limit the farmers’ privilege through regulation. “This is hardly what one would call enshrining a farmer’s right to use their own seed,” he wrote in an opinion piece.

Farm-saved seed is “not an absolute right,” Parker acknowledged, but added the legislation needs flexibility because 330 different crop kinds are covered.

“To say that the same thing will work in the cereal sector, as will work in the potato sector, as will work in the fruit tree sector is somewhat unreasonable,” he said.

No changes to the farmers’ privilege can be made without consulting farmers, Parker added.

According to the NFU, the new law would allow breeders to take draconian measures, such as freezing assets of those suspected of contravening breeders’ rights.

“We have not had, to date, any draconian measures under the PBR act and it’s not expected with these few provisions bringing it up to UPOV ’91 that there will be any draconian measures in terms of enforcement of Plant Breeders’ Rights,” Parker said.

Breaches

Breeders’ rights have been in place since 1991 in Canada. When breaches occur, farmers are usually required to pay the royalties they owe, plus costs.

Under the new law a seed cleaner caught processing brown-bagged seed could be forced to compensate the breeder, Parker said. But seed cleaners can protect themselves by getting farmers to sign waivers.

“There are simple solutions,” he said. “I don’t think there needs to be any concern among those treating or conditioning seed.”

Protecting breeders allows them to get a return on investment, which encourages domestic and foreign breeders to provide improved varieties to Canadian farmers, he said.

“There’s this notion out there that this is a zero sum proposition — if breeders gain more rights then farmers must lose rights,” Parker said. “That is not the case. It is truly a win-win situation. Stronger breeders’ rights result in more farmer benefits.”

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