ISLAMABAD, Dec 1: Speakers at a seminar urged the government to address concerns of small farmers in the proposed Plant Breeder’s Right (PBR) Act before its finalisation, saying it will damage the livelihood of millions of small farmers directly or indirectly engaged in the profession.

They also urged the government to ban biotechnology (BT) cotton cultivation in the country on the ground as BT cotton was not authentic and of the approved variety. Even pioneer countries of this seed were not exactly sure about its harmful effects on the fragile ecological environment and towards the health of humans.

They were speaking at a one-day national consultation workshop on “Plant Breeders Right Act and its Implications for Small Farmers” organised by the Sustainable Agriculture Action Group (SAAG) -- a network organisation of civil society organisations and farmers associations.

Director General Federal Seed Certification Department of Pakistan Dr Ikhlaq Ahmad said that we were not breeders rather we were adapters. He said that even though the PBR Act safeguarded commercial exploitation of seed varieties but it did not protect the small farmers of their rights of access to genetic resources and economically-beneficial crop varieties.

Dr Shahid Zia of the Lok Sanjh Foundation said that the existing draft of the said act did not recognise the notion of farmers’ rights and mentioned only “farmers exemptions” and “scientists exemptions”.

He lamented that the replacement of rights of farmers with certain exemptions or concessions was primarily the root cause of all distortions in the draft document just to protect the corporate interests.

Dr Zahoor Sawti from the Agricultural University Peshawar said that genetic resources were nothing but green gold for farmers and it was a natural phenomenon whenever distortion occurred it damaged not only the entire ecology but also human wellbeing.

He further emphasised that it was a challenge for the small farmers to face the corporate greed of multinational giants in the seed sector as well as the increased trends of commercialization of plant genetic resources.

UNDP representative Fayayaz Baqir said problems of farmers were increasing with commercialisation of agriculture and a majority of the population was not aware about the increasing problems of farmers, especially regarding his wages and welfare.

While Younus Maseeh from Caritas Pakistan said there should be resistance by the farmers against the draft of the PBR Act 2006 in order to ensure their rights as the custodians of their farm produce and local seeds.