The Farmers' right in U.S history

Regine Andersen

The farmers were hard work.

     Thomas Gehring: Institutional Interaction: Enhancing Cooperation and Preventing Conflicts Between International And European Environmental Institutions (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Ruiz, Manuel (1999): Protecting Indigenous Peoples Knowledge: A Policy and Legal Perspective from Peru, Policy and Law Series, No. 3 (Lima: SPDA). Smale, Melinda (ed.) (1998): Farmers, Gene Banks and Crop Breeding. Economic Analyses of Diversity in Wheat, Maize and Rice (Boston/ Dordrecht/ London: Kluwer Academic). Toledo, Alvaro (2002): ‘Saving the Seed: Europe’s Challenge’, Seedling, April 2002 (Barcelona: GRAIN).
     As outlined in the summaries above, the wide range of documentation and literature on farmers’ rights can provide insights into the potentials and possibilities for the realization of farmers’ rights, as well as the difficulties that may be encountered. This source of experience, insights and reflections offers a valuable point of departure for translating the concept of farmers’ rights into feasible policies, strategies and programmes.
More work is, however, required to systematise the experience into building blocks for this purpose and to help to transform and develop the insights into practical steps.
     The findings from this study will be further deepened in the case studies of the Farmers’ Rights Project. On this basis, together with the findings from the other background studies of the project, we will derive final conclusions in the synthesis report.
Search: http://www.fni.no/doc&pdf/FNI-R0805.pdf
The image search: http://citizenshift.org/farmers-right-save-seed-7?dossier_nid=1120

The Farmers' right in U.S history

The Farmers' Right To Save Seed

      The Contracting Parties recognise the enormous contribution that the local and indigenous communities and farmers of all regions of the world, particularly those in the centres of origin and crop diversity, have made and will continue to make for the conservation and development of plant genetic resources which constitute the basis of food and agriculture production throughout the world.
      The Contracting Parties agree that the responsibility for realising Farmers' Rights, as they relate to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, rests with national governments. In accordance with their needs and priorities, each Contracting Party should, as appropriate, and subject to its national legislation, take measures to protect and promote Farmers' Rights, including: protection of traditional knowledge relevant to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture;the right to equitably participate in the sharing of benefits arising from the utilisation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture; andthe right to participate in making decisions, at the national level, on matters related to the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.
Search: http://www.fni.no/doc&pdf/FNI-R0805.pdf
The image search: http://citizenshift.org/farmers-right-save-seed-8?dossier_nid=1120

The farmers' right in U.S history

The topic about " A Guide to Central Documents and Literature".

 export countries help U.S. farmers understand what customers need.

    The Farmers’ Rights Project has been set up to facilitate a common understanding and develop an empirical basis for proposals to the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture on concrete measures to be taken to implement its provisions on farmers’ rights.

    The documents represent the fruits of long and complex negotiations, and provide an important context for the realization of

farmers’ rights. How to reward farmers for their past, present and future contributions to conserving, improving and making available crop genetic resources for food and agriculture has been a central topic in the negotiations. An international fund for supporting and assisting farmers in this has long been on the agenda. Discussions have also focused on how farmers’ rights can balance breeders’ rights, so as to ensure an equitable system that can facilitate farmers’ continued access to – and free use of – crop genetic resources.

    The substantial and increasing body of literature on farmers’ rights provides a valuable source of insights in the potentials for, and possible difficulties in, realizing farmers’ rights. Although authors differ in their points of departure, emphases and perspectives, their contributions are largely compatible. The literature provides important points of departure for understanding the subject matter of farmers’ rights, types of rights, rights holders, and appropriate measures for protecting and promoting these rights.

    It also draws lessons from initial efforts at realizing these rights, and warns against certain tendencies which might prove counterproductive. The findings from this study will be further deepened in other studies from the Farmers’ Rights Project, and conclusions from the project will be presented in the final report.

search: http://www.fni.no/doc&pdf/FNI-R0805.pdf form The farmers' right project

Images search: http://www.soygrowers.com/library/japan50/ form Activity Photographs

The farmers' right in U.S history.

The farmers' right need protect.

Justice Thomas, who wrote the opinion, left the attorney general’s office in 1977 and became a corporate lawyer in the pesticide and agriculture division of the Monsanto Company. When J.E.M. was being decided, Monsanto held over a thousand plant patents that stood to be overturned.In the wake of those decisions, a handful of corporations spent more than thirty-four billion dollars in mergers and acquisitions.

    As a result of extending utility patents to sexually produced plants, the farmer and research exemptions of the PVPA—the right to save seeds and the right to use any protected variety to develop new varieties—were eliminated. Furthermore, farmers would now be subject to liability for patent infringement, not only if they saved patented seed, but also if they saved seed contaminated by patented pollen from neighboring fields.

    Internationally, during the negotiations over the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Treaty of 1992, the notion of a farmer’s right, as the right to save seeds and use protected varieties to develop new varieties, gave way to a new definition of “farmers’ rights.”

search: http://www.law.uoregon.edu/org/jell/docs/192/Haapala.pdf from JOHNE.HAAPALA,JR.

The image search:  http://www.farmersrights.org/about/fr_history_part0.html

The farmers' right in U.S history

The topic is about the farmers' right in U.S history.



The USDA hopes to help farmers while promoting the environment.



    Sixty-five years of congressional activity protected the farmer’s right to save, use, exchange, and sell seed of the 20th century. Recognizing the obstacles patent monopolies would pose to farmers, the Senate clarified “the patent right granted is a right to propagate a new variety by asexual reproduction. It does not include the right to propagate by seeds.”

   In 1965, a presidential commission reviewed the role of plant patents and concluded that patents did not fall into §101 subject matter for utility patents. In 1968, Congress proposed an amendment to insert the words “or sexually” in sections 161 and 163 of the PPA. The amendment was defeated.

    Instead, in 1970, Congress specifically crafted a new and distinct intellectual property regime for sexually reproducing plants—the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA). With the PVPA Congress created a sui generis statute extending patent-like protection to sexually propagated seed plants, while carefully preserving a farmer’s right to save seeds. 

    The USDA opposed granting utility patents to sexually reproducing plants because such patents would threaten continuing development and introduction of new seed varieties. More specifically, the USDA feared that seed patenting would severely limit free data exchange, restrict open research discussion, and diminish the exchange of experimental plants.

search: http://www.law.uoregon.edu/org/jell/docs/192/Haapala.pdf from JOHNE.HAAPALA,JR.

The image search: http://www.machinefinder.com/ww/en-us/articles/1341 from Machine Finder

The farmers' right in the U.S history

The topic is about the farmers' right in the U.S history.







Striking farmers



    In 1983 the International Undertaking on Plant Gebetic Resources was adopted at the FAO conference, which is the supreme governing body of the organization.There was, however, as yet no documented mention of Farmers' Rights.

    Later on, in 1995, the mandate of the Commission was broadened to cover all components of agrobiodiversity of relevance to food and agriculture (Resolution 3/95, Twenty-eighth Session of the FAO Conference, Rome, 1995).

    In March 1985, at this session there was still no documented mention of Farmers' Rights.However, the Commission noted that 74 of the 156 FAO member nations had expressed support for the Undertaking.It was in this Working Group that Farmers' Rights were first addressed in the FAO system, but that did not come until 1986.

    On the basis of the discussion in the Working Group on how to deal with country reservations to the Undertaking and attract greater adherence, a report was produced for the Second Session of the Commission on Plant Genetic Resources, to be held in Rome in March 1987:

    Farmers' Rights were addressed in greater detail, so these parts of the report from the meeting constitute an important basis for understanding the history of this concept in March 1987.

source: http://www.farmersrights.org/about/fr_history_part2.html from Farmers' right web.

picture source: http://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/?p=322 from Picturing U.S History