The legal suit at the Supreme Court:
PVPA Writ To the Supreme Court – 11-11-2021
The Statement of Case by FSG:
Plant Varieties Protection Act PVPA Statement of Case – 11-11-2021
The legal suit at the Supreme Court:
PVPA Writ To the Supreme Court – 11-11-2021
The Statement of Case by FSG:
Plant Varieties Protection Act PVPA Statement of Case – 11-11-2021
Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG) together with other civil society, as well as faith-based organisations in Ghana have waged a consistent and vociferous battle against Ghana’s Plant Variety Protection Bill, based on UPOV 1991 for several years. The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) is an intergovernmental organisation with headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland). The 1991 Act of UPOV (UPOV 91) is a restrictive, draconian and inflexible legal regime, emanating from industrialised countries in response to the advent of large-scale commercial farming and commercial plant breeding and governs private rights.
The plant variety rights bill (PBR) was passed in December 2020, despite such push back in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. The PBR Act is extremely draconian and continues to be opposed as it not only grants extremely strong breeders’ rights, it is also a declaration of war against farmers because it provides for prison sentences of at least 10 (ten) years for violations of the act.
This odious PBR law contains a clause, which provides some small safeguards for the possibility for the implementation of farmers’ rights in Ghana in the future. However, this Clause 22, has been reinterpreted by the Attorney General of Ghana to force compliance with UPOV 1991.
Clause 22 makes plant breeder rights “subject to“, rather than “independent of” other regulations regarding the marketing of seeds.[1] This means that there is a possibility that for example, where a GM variety is not allowed to be placed on the variety list and allowed to be produced and marketed in Ghana in terms of its seed law, it may also not allow plant breeder’s rights from being granted in regard to such variety. The clause renders Ghana’s PBR law inconsistent with UPOV 1991 and does not allow Ghana to proceed to join UPOV 1991.
Art. 18 of UPOV 91 states: “The breeder’s right shall be independent of any measure taken by a Contracting Party to regulate [Commerce]”.
We are alarmed and outraged that the Honorable, Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice of Ghana, sent a letter to the Office of UPOV with the request to reaffirm the decision of the UPOV Council taken in 2013, that Ghana’s PBR Act is in conformity with UPOV 1991. In this regard, he has conveyed disingenuous interpretations of the clause to UPOV in an attempt to force compliance with UPOV 1991, which we totally reject. FSG together with APBREBES submitted a Comment [LINK] to UPOV in this regard.[2]
FSG is utterly dismayed that the government of Ghana is still pursuing the submission of the instruments of accession to the Convention of UPOV 91. We reiterate our strenous opposition to both the Act and Ghana joining UPOV 1991.
Food Sovereignty Ghana vehemently opposes numerous provisions and inadequacies of the PBR Act, such as the complete absence of any measures against biopiracy and especially the criminalisation of farmers. We demand the revision of the entire legislation and in particular Clause 60 dealing with offences. We thus affirm our strong opposition to UPOV 1991, which strengthens breeder’s rights and imposes new restrictions on farmers’ rights to save, use, exchange and sell seed of protected varieties. UPOV 1991 has long-term effects of corporate monopolisation and corporate capture, diversion of seed and agricultural research and development in favour of extractive multinational markets, loss of biodiversity, human rights’ violations, social and political injustices and inequities and loss of national and farmer sovereignty over genetic resources.
We hereby demand that the Attorney General desist from forcing Ghana into joining UPOV 1991 and continue to oppose the PBR Act and demand the full implementation of farmers’ rights in Ghana.
–
For Life, the Environment, and Social Justice!
Edwin Kweku Andoh Baffour
Communications Directorate, FSG
Contact:
Tel: +233 207973808
E-mail : info@foodsovereigntyghana.org
Website: http://foodsovereigntyghana.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoodSovereignGH
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FoodSovereigntyGhana
[2] Comments by APBREBES on the document “Developments on the Plant Variety Protection Act (Act 1050 of 2020) of Ghana” (document C/Developments/2021/1) https://www.apbrebes.org/sites/default/files/2021-07/Comments%20PVP%20Act%20of%20Ghana_APBREBES_fin.pdf
June 1, 2021
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The World Health Organization confirmed the link between the active ingredient in Roundup and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, which is a life-threatening condition and can cause enlarged lymph nodes – which are tumors in your neck, under arms, stomach, groin area and other places in your body – along with fever, weight-loss, infections, night sweats and even death.
If you think you or your loved one may have NHL, call us today on +233 302 739 029. Or you can send us a WhatsApp on +23354 55 4522 and we’ll call you.
Once you qualify, we will help you fight for the help you may deserve. We look forward to hearing from you!
March 1, 2021
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Researchers want GMO transparency
It’s ironic that this call for transparency comes from US researchers at a time when the UK is trying to follow the US’s deregulatory approach. This could mean no safety checks and potentially no #GMO labelling, and the end of freedom of choice for consumers and farmers alike.
— GMWatch (@GMWatch) March 1, 2021
Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG) will on Wednesday January 27th 2021 appear before the Human Rights High Court One of the Republic of Ghana at 9am.
As first plaintiff/applicant, a motion seeking an interlocutory injunction against the defendants to distribute genetically modified (GM) Cowpea or any such GM seedlings to farmers in any part of the country, for cultivation or for any such agricultural purposes” was filed on 22nd of December 2020 by second plaintiff/applicant Counsel Bright Akwetey.
The five defendants are the National Biosafety Committee, The Ministry of Food & Agriculture, the National Biosafety Authority, The Office of the Attorney General and the Council of Scientific and (Industrial Research (CSIR) respectively.
FSG among other reliefs is praying the court “That the case of the Plaintiffs in the instant suit seeking to determine matters of public awareness, health, damage to the ecosystem, breach of local and international laws and such related matters raised, need the appropriate legal determination before any such approval for GMO activities may be considered in Ghana”
This is an unprecedented development in our judicial annals as it is the first case concerning biotechnology in Ghana and the eventual ruling will have a great implication on future policy making.
–
For Life, the Environment, and Social Justice!
Edwin Kweku Andoh Baffour
Communications Directorate, FSG
Contact: +233 207973808
E-mail : info@foodsovereigntyghana.org
Website: http://foodsovereigntyghana.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoodSovereignGH
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FoodSovereigntyGhana
The Obnoxious Plant Breeders’ Bill Is Back To Parliament!
Press Conference on the Plant Breeders’ Bill#plantbreedersbill #UPOV
July 29, 2020 https://t.co/o6mMd0TZU6— FoodSovereigntyGhana (@FoodSovereignGH) July 29, 2020
It has come to our attention that the Cabinet of President Akuffo-Addo has taken the decision to re-introduce the controversial Plant Breeders’ Bill back to Parliament without taking into account any of the objections raised against it for the past seven years.
Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG) unreservedly condemns this decision. Even though Ghana, as a member of the World Trade Organization and is under a WTO obligation to protect the intellectual property of new plant varieties, this must not provide the excuse to impose the stringent restrictive regime being introduced. The bill the Cabinet of President Akufo-Addo just recommended to Parliament is modelled on the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants of 1991 (UPOV 1991) which is a rigid and an inflexible regime for plant variety protection (PVP).
As has been pointed out on several occasions, “the rights and obligations concerning intellectual property are governed by the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). According to Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPS Agreement, Ghana has to provide protection of plant varieties by an “effective sui generis” system. Sui generis means a “unique” system of protection. This provision allows Ghana maximum flexibility in the design of plant variety protection (PVP). This is what many developing countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, India have done. The African Union Ministers have also recommended a unique Model Law for Plant Variety Protection. See: Ghana’s Plant Breeders Bill Lacks Legitimacy! It Must Be Revised! http://
Controversy
It would be recalled that the last time the UPOV-compliant Plant Breeders Bill was laid in Parliament, in 2013, it sparked a huge controversy to the extent that the then Speaker of Parliament had to take the unprecedented decision to withdraw the bill which was already at the Consideration Stage, “for further consultations”.
Several farmers’ associations, civil society organisations, faith-based organisations, as well as prominent individuals and international organisations who raised their voices against the bill were concerned about the basis on which Ghana opted for UPOV 91 when many independent experts and UN reports have actually recommended that developing countries should not join the UPOV system as it offers a rigid model inappropriate for developing countries where farmer managed seed systems (informal seed systems) and the practices of freely saving, using, exchanging and selling seeds are prevalent. Most saw the decision for UPOV91 as benefiting commercial breeders and consequent revisions to the act have leaned towards promoting genetic uniformity in crop varieties, which can have drastic effects on biodiversity.
Another pertinent issue raised in the petitions is a simple demand that has never been responded. It is the call for fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of Ghana’s genetic resources. We urgently need answers from Cabinet as to why there is still no provision in the Bill requiring the disclosure of origin in the application for the plant breeder right. This provision is critical for combating biopiracy of our genetic resources. UPOV establishes no mechanisms or safeguards against the practice of ‘biopiracy’.
A key element in the controversy is the demand to see the disclosure of origin of all genetic materials in the applications for patents or plant variety protection, in order to protect Ghana from biopiracy. Biopiracy or a situation where indigenous knowledge of nature, originating with indigenous peoples, is used by others for profit, without permission from and with little or no compensation or recognition to the indigenous people themselves. The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources is one of the three objectives of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD recognises the sovereign right of states over their natural resources in areas within their jurisdiction. See: The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit-Sharing.pdf http://
The Plant Breeders’ Bill in its current form, is a paradise for bio pirates, usually giant multinational seed corporations, which seek to take advantage of our genetic resources at Ghana’s expense. As Paul Raeburn puts it in his book, The Last Harvest: The Genetic Gamble That Threatens to Destroy American Agriculture (page 95): “The value of crop germplasm, a kind of green gold, is never clear until it is put to use. The examples of Norin10 and IR36 clearly show that crop germplasm can often be worth billions”.
There are several obnoxious clauses such as the criminalisation of farmers, (See: Clause 58) which still remain in the current text. Clause 21 reduces the right of the farmer to the discretion of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, whilst Clause 23 of the Bill elevates the plant breeder’s rights over and above the laws of Ghana. The situation was grave. It was in this light that FSG wrote to congratulate His Excellency, President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo upon his election, dated December 13, 2016, stating among other things:
“Considering the numerous objections from experts all over the world, that UPOV benefits the big multinational seed corporations, and that a developing country like Ghana stands to lose by its adoption; the ubiquitous problem of corruption and the track records of the corporate lobby behind the UPOV bill, we strongly smell a rat. We do not only demand its withdrawal from Parliament, and a replacement with a “sui generis” plant variety protection system, but also, investigations into why we came so close as a people to be sold out to foreign seed companies, and draw the appropriate lessons. For the same reasons, we further call for the total rejection of the Arusha New Plants Protection Protocol, currently pending Parliamentary ratification, as just another way of smuggling into our laws, the same UPOV convention without public scrutiny.” See: FSG Congratulates President-Elect Nana Akufo-Addo, December 13, 2016. https://
“Sensitisation” Workshops
In the evening of Wednesday, 26th February, 2020, FSG was alerted to an ongoing two-day “National Workshop on the Plant Breeders’ Bill”, in Accra organized by the Registrar General’s Department where the reviewed Plant Breeders’ Bill was expected to be presented. FSG only heard of this at the end of the first day from a representative from the Peasant Farmers’ Association of Ghana, PFAG. No formal invitation was ever extended, but were informed by a participant that “the organisers said FSG was welcome”.
It was at this ‘workshop’ that FSG learned from the organisers that the Cabinet of President Nana Akufo-Addo has taken the decision to re-introduce to Parliament, the controversial UPOV91-compliant Plant Breeders’ Bill without any changes. Naturally, since none of the numerous objections raised by civil society and faith-based organisations against the bill have been taken into consideration, a backlash is feared. Consequently, in order to preempt that, the idea of “sensitization workshop” was embarked upon, following Cabinet’s advice to first ‘educate stakeholders”. According to news reports, Mr. Samuel Anum, Project Coordinator of the Intellectual Property Project, Ministry of Trade and Industry, has indicated that “another one would be held for the northern sector to well educate stakeholders within that part of the country”.
Many organisations, including Food Sovereignty Ghana, that have publicly come out against the Plant Breeders’ Bill were not even invited to the workshops. This clearly clashed with the demands by numerous organisations for consultations, transparency, public awareness and participation in such an important decision. And as it happened, the meeting was structured in such a fashion that instead of the expected discussion on the fundamental objections to the bill, the meeting was turned into a classroom with several “professors” taking turns to lecture each participant who opened dared the mouth, within the limited time, without any interest in feed-back, nor any right of reply from the participants. And all this “discussion” happened in less than two hours.
Even though no one even saw a copy of the Plant Breeders’ Bill, at any of those “workshops”, the organisers were able to come to the conclusion that “invariably, there was much more of a consensus” (on the acceptance of the bill) at the Accra workshop and most probably, all the workshops. [See: Video Report on Meeting… Part One, 51.10] It is difficult to see how any form of transparency can be achieved when the invitations to the workshops themselves appear skewed towards organisations and institutions that have already expressed some form of support for the Plant Breeders’ Bill in the past, while very few of those who had even petitioned the Parliament over the same bill were excluded.
There are independent scientific studies that confirm this. For example, Centre for International Environmental Studies Research Paper cites:
For Life, the Environment, and Social Justice!
Edwin Kweku Andoh Baffour
Director of Communications, FSG
May 30, 2020
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FSG MEETING WITH THE REGISTRAR GENERAL’S DEPARTMENT & MINISTRY OF FOOD & AGRICULTURE ON THE CALL FOR AMENDMENTS TO THE PLANT BREEDERS BILL,
PART ONE (1): https://facebook.com/watch/live/?v=174423600665366…
PART TWO (2): https://facebook.com/watch/live/?v=174423600665366…
YouTube: FSG Meeting with Government on the Plant Breeders’ Bill: https://www.youtube.com/
Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG) is meeting with the government this Friday, 29th May 2020, on the Plant Breeders’ Bill. This follows an invitation by the Registrar-General for meeting “as a follow-up to the workshop on Ghana’s Plant Breeders’ Bill which was held on 26th and 27th February, 2020 in Accra, where your organisation raised some issues”.
The issues we raised then were calls on the government to be inclusive in their ongoing consultations on the reintroduction of the Plant Breeders’ Bill. We condemned the fact that even though several organisations and institutions wrote petitions to the Speaker of Parliament, the government appeared to have decided to ignore these petitions and so far, no conscious attempts have even been made to get their side of the story. FSG found it regrettable that, of the numerous groups that petitioned the Speaker on the bill, only three were invited to the workshop organised by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Registrar-General’s Department.
Protest Statement
Indeed, the attention of FSG was drawn in the evening of Wednesday, 26th February, 2020, to an ongoing two-day “National Workshop on the Plant Breeders’ Bill”, in Accra organized by the Registrar General’s Department where the reviewed Plant Breeders’ Bill was expected to be presented. FSG only heard of this at the end of the first day. No formal invitation was ever extended, but were informed by a participant that “the organisers said FSG was welcome”. FSG thus sent observers, Messrs Evans Tawiah, FSG Secretary, and Peterson Agrain Hutrapo Attipoe FSG Director of Operations, who informed the organisers that:
“1. We wish to register our protest against the informal and last minute invitation to such an event of grave national importance. 2. In view of the lack of prior information on the proposed review of the Plant Breeders’ Bill, we shall restrict our participation solely to information gathering. And, 3. We reserve our comments until we have satisfied ourselves as regards the contents of the reviewed bill vis-a-vis the demands in our petition forwarded to the Speaker of Parliament.”
It emerged however, at the workshop that it was not about a “review” of the Plant Breeders’ Bill, but what they called, a sensitisation programme. The message was that that none of the objections raised against the original bill had been taken into consideration, since these objections were sent to the NDC Administration of former President Mahama, and we now have the NPP Administration of President Akufo Addo.
Prof. Hans Adu Daapah, the moderator, actually said, “Food Sovereignty Ghana must resubmit your memo to Parliament… The Constitution of this country is such that when the term of the Parliament ends, everything ends. You have presented something to the previous Parliament, and you will have to reintroduce yourselves.” Apparently, the new Cabinet has therefore taken the decision to re-introduce the original bill without any changes, hence the need for “sensitisation”.
Non-Inclusive Consultations
Since no one had apparently bothered to take a look at the Petitions against the Plant Breeders’ Bill from various stakeholder groups in Ghana, the organisers clearly had no idea what aggrieved groups, CSOs, FBOs, let alone, to invite. In all there were around 30 participants from “selected from key institutions”, but apart from one or two, hardly anyone invited had sent a petition to the previous government on the same bill.
Hence, as one would expect, most of the “invitees” from institutions and organisations such as the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Alliance for Science Ghana, Ghana Chamber of Agribusiness, University of Ghana, Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute, National Seed Traders Association of Ghana, University of Cape Coast, and the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), were singing from the same hymn sheet.
After FSG reading portions of our objections and suggestions to some of the clauses of the Plant Breeders’ Bill, we are asked to “give in” because we are a “minority” who are trying “to hold the whole country down.” Whilst FSG was stopped from reading the extracts form our previous petition to highlight our concerns on biopiracy, benefit sharing of Ghana’s genetic resources, and the criminalisation of farmers, with a request to us to send our petition by email, we also heard contradictory remarks such as all the objections to the Plant Breeders’ Bill had been already addressed by the previous government.
The workshop itself was long on the need to protect the intellectual property rights of the plant breeder, and short on the plant variety protection models fit for purpose. The discussions covered everything from intellectual property, patents, copyright law, trade marks, industrial design, etc, but nothing on the various models of plant variety protection and why the government is insisting on UPOV 91 Convention. As it turned out, the sensitisation workshop ended with the FSG very much underwhelmed and unsensitised.
FSG Demands
“We have already pointed out that Ghana is a member of the World Trade Organization and the rights and obligations concerning intellectual property are governed by the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). According to Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPS Agreement, Ghana has to provide protection of plant varieties by an “effective sui generis” system. Ghana has full flexibility under the World Trade Organization (WTO) to develop an effective “sui generis” system for plant variety protection, i.e. to develop a unique system that suits its needs.
This provision allows Ghana maximum flexibility in the design of plant variety protection (PVP). This is what many developing countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, India have done. The African Union Ministers have also recommended a unique Model Law for Plant Variety Protection.
FSG has never said that plant breeders must not be protected. What we want is a system of protection that guarantees the rights of the plant breeder as well as the farmer. So far, neither government nor Parliament has accounted for the basis for the opting for UPOV 91. In the Memorandum to the Bill, we are only informed about the decision without any justifications.
It is a well-established position of FSG that, “Ghana can protect plant breeder rights without necessarily opting for UPOV 91. The Bill is modelled on the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants of 1991 (UPOV 1991) which is a rigid and an inflexible regime for plant variety protection (PVP). It is worth noting that today out of the 71 UPOV members, only a fraction – about 22 developing countries are members of UPOV. Most of these developing countries (e.g. Brazil, China, Argentina, South Africa) and even some developed countries (e.g. Norway) are not members of UPOV 1991 but rather UPOV 1978, which is a far more flexible regime.” See: Replace Plant Breeders’ Bill With A “Sui Generis” PVP System.
Live coverage
FSG shall facilitate a live coverage of the entire encounter, in order to promote public awareness and participation in such an important debate. The meeting organisers understandably restricted the number of participants to only “a maximum of fifteen (15) members of your organisation”. In the era of Covid-19 lockdowns and social distancing, this has become the norm. However, thankfully, more and more activities are also going online, where even more people can now participate.
This is also important because such recordings serve as public records for future references in case of misrepresentations afterwards. Previous experience of distortions of our meeting with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs, in 2013, which even surfaced during the last workshop. We never get official transcripts of our meetings with government officials, but some politicians keep misrepresenting us to suit their own agenda. Hence, it is our hope that a live coverage is what we need to ensure transparency, probity, and accountability.
We shall be going live Facebook on Friday, 29th May, 2020, at 10:00 GMT.
Watch: https://www.facebook.com/FoodSovereigntyGhana/live/
For Life, the Environment, and Social Justice!
Edwin Kweku Andoh Baffour
Communications Directorate, FSG
February 27, 2020
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BREAKING NEWS! #PlantBreedersBill
A two-day National Workshop on the Plant Breeders Bill is currently underway, in Accra organized by the Registrar General’s Department where the reviewed Plant Breeders’ Bill is expected to be presented.
Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG) only heard of it at the end of the first day! No formal invitation was extended, but were informed by a participant that the organisers say we were welcome. FSG has sent observers.
Stay tuned!
BREAKING NEWS! A two-day National Workshop on the Plant Breeders Bill is currently underway, in Accra organized by the Registrar General's Department where the reviewed Plant Breeders' Bill is expected to be presented. pic.twitter.com/pVMMIekc6S
— FoodSovereigntyGhana (@FoodSovereignGH) February 27, 2020
February 17, 2020
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Your Excellency @NAkufoAddo, please, according to @RT_com, your office has been contacted for comments and they are awaiting response. Please, we are also interested in your response. https://t.co/gDC3fY135G
— FoodSovereigntyGhana (@FoodSovereignGH) February 17, 2020