The Bangkok Post
Oct 11, 2017
Most Thais still engage in agriculture. Yet the agriculture officialdom chooses to serve agro giants, not farmers. This is a travesty.
Examples of its misplaced loyalty abound. Its latest antic, however, is probably the ugliest.
Hot on heels of the refusal to ban two highly toxic farm chemicals to protect the agrochemical industry at the cost of public health and environmental destruction, the Department of Agriculture wants to ban farmers’ age-old right to save and breed seeds to enslave them to seed giants’ business monopoly.
Equally distressing is its attempt to allow agro giants to exploit indigenous plants and seeds freely without having to share any benefits with local communities.
What’s new, you may ask. In the past decade, agriculture mandarins have relentlessly tried to amend the Plant Varieties Protection Act to give agro giants free access to local plants and seeds. Frequent changes of government and fierce resistance from farmers and civic groups have forced them to shelve it, but only temporarily. They just wait for the “right time” to push for it again.
True. There’s nothing new in the Department of Agriculture’s new push for the controversial draft law. Like its previous attempt in 2013, the proposed amendments in favor of agro giants remain the same. What’s ugly is what the agriculture authorities chose as the “perfect time” to make it happen.
This month of October is when the whole country is in deep grief for the final farewell to the late and revered King. All public attention is focused on the royal cremation ceremony. Yet, this is also when the Department of Agriculture quietly posted the draft amendments to the Plant Varieties Protection Act on its website, allowing only 15 days between Oct 5-20 for an “electronic public hearing”. Clear is its aim to pre-empt public protests so it could quickly forward the draft law to the government and the junta-installed parliament.
If this is not ugly, what is? The late King Bhumibol devoted his life to improving the livelihoods of small farmers and restoring the environment through sustainable farming. Agriculture authorities — like other state agencies — chant the late King’s “sufficiency economy” like a sacred mantra. Then they do just the opposite by issuing laws and policies that destroy the livelihoods of the locals and the environment to serve big businesses.
If this is not hypocrisy, what is?
In addition to the mourning period, farmers across the country are now struggling with devastating floods. How could farmers during a time like this possibly give feedback to the mandarins in air-conditioned Bangkok offices?
This is plain trickery. Had it not been for Biothai, a non-government organization which champions the country’s biodiversity and farmers’ rights, we wouldn’t have learned of the Department of Agriculture’s secretive move.
At present, the Plant Varieties Protection Act allows farmers to save commercial seeds to cultivate and share with other farmers for the new farming season. Under the draft law, farmers can no longer do so, or risk a maximum jail term of two years and/or a maximum fine of 400,000 baht.
To please the agro industry further, seed companies no longer have to share the financial benefits with local communities when they use local plants and seeds to develop new qualities to patent them.
This is because the draft law defines native plants so broadly that it allows agro giants to freely use indigenous plants or special varieties specific to geographic areas in the country without having to share any benefits with the country.
The agro industry is not even required to identify the source materials of their products for patent registration. In short, bio-piracy will have a field day in Thailand if the draft amendments are passed into law.
What’s more, the new law would extend the protection period for patented plants and seeds from 12-17 years to 20-25 years. In addition, patent control, now covering only seeds and saplings, will be expanded to include harvested materials and products.
True, patented plants and seeds are allowed for research purposes. Despite new characteristics having been developed, if the new variety still contains the main quality of the patented seeds or plants, the outcome will still legally belong to the original patent holder to maintain its business monopoly. Quite tricky, isn’t it?
The Department of Agriculture argued that small farmers can still save commercial seeds and breed them for future use. Biothai, however, points out that which seeds are allowed will be determined by the Plant Varieties Protection Committee. At present, half the 12-member committee are elected from farmers groups. Under the proposed amendment, however, all members will be appointed by state authorities. It’s clear who the committee will serve.
Faced with a public outcry following Biothai’s protest, the Department of Agriculture has extended the electronic public hearing for another month, while standing its ground on the draft law.
The agriculture authorities also argue it is necessary for Thailand to amend the law to be line with UPOV 1991, the international treaty under the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants which deals with genetic resource patenting.
But they refuse to admit that the treaty undermines small farmers’ traditional rights to save and breed seeds while depriving local communities — and the country itself — of existing rights to share patent benefits when agro giants use local genetic resources to develop new plant and seed varieties.
Any decisions that will affect the majority of Thais should not be decided by a handful of bureaucratic elites. They should be political platforms for the upcoming general election — should we really have one in the near future — for voters to decide.
This principle does not apply only to this controversial draft law which strengthens agro giants’ iron grip on farmers and the country’s biogenetic resources. For other state agencies are doing exactly the same thing — exploiting the regime’s power to push for controversial laws and megaprojects to benefit big business at the cost of the environment, public health, and locals’ livelihoods.
The Public Health Ministry, for example, is undermining the universal healthcare policy that protects more than 48 million people just to assert power over its huge budget.
The Ministry of Defense is increasing its arms budget without valid justification nor care for public fury.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment is using soldiers to step up violent crackdowns on the forest poor to cement its central control over national forests.
The Industry Ministry is busy taking care of the mining industry’s interests. Sadly, the government supports these environmentally destructive policies and laws and throws its weight behind coal-fired power plants, deep-sea ports, and more big dams while dismissing renewable energy.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives’ move to strengthen the agro giants’ business monopoly is more outrageous only because it is timed to coincide with the period when public grief is at its height, apparently with the aim of escaping public attention.
Though maddening, the move underscores officialdom’s collusion with big business, which is growing bolder by the day under military regime.
Short of power decentralization, the ballot box — though necessary — in itself alone wouldn’t be able to offset autocratic, centralized bureaucracy as the country sinks deeper and deeper into political and environmental hopelessness.
*Sanitsuda Ekachai is Bangkok Post’s former Editorial Pages Editor.
(https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1340443/playing-ugly-legal-tricks-to-serve-agro-giants)
