[ 2014-10-01 ]

GMOs, Blackmail and Lies, Pressures To Pass the Plant Breeders Bill
Parliament still appears determined to defy
democracy, defy the will of the Ghanaian people,
and pass the Plant Breeders Bill. The Parliament
of Ghana, is expected to resume for the Third
Meeting of the Second Session of the Sixth
Parliament on or around October 21, 2014.

The Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional,
Legal and Parliamentary Affairs is expected to
present a report on the Petitions on the Plant
Breeder's Bill, 2013, to Parliament. On the basis
of this report, Parliament may decide on the next
steps. It would be recalled that following
numerous petitions submitted to the House, the
Speaker referred the matter to the Leadership of
the House for consideration and advice.

Thereafter, a press conferencewas organised at
which none of the petitioners were invited. At
this press conference attempts were made to fool
the public, pretending that the Plant Breeders
Bill has nothing to do with GMOs. Various radio
interviews, and statements by several members of
the committee have systematically sought to
bastardize the petitions and to defend the Bill as
it stands, without paying any due attention to the
fundamental concerns in the petitions.

We have every reason to believe that Parliament is
being blackmailed by USAID and the G8/G7 whose
intention is to advance the interests of their
agribusiness Trans National Corporations, TNCs.
Their tool is the G8 New Alliance, G8NA. They
clearly do not care about Ghana.

IMF funds are almost certainly being held hostage
waiting for passage of the Plant Breeders Bill. We
know from the experience of other countries that
Millennium Challenge Account payments are tied to
GMOs and GMO related bills, such as our Plant
Breeders Bill. We know promised money may be
withheld from Ghana pending the coerced passage of
the bill.

Some MPs claim, or have been misled to believe,
that Ghana must pass the UPOV-bill as it stands,
to be in compliance with the World Trade
Organization, the WTO. This is NOT the case. We do
not need to be part of UPOV. Developing countries
such as Ghana have full rights under the WTO to
pass their own sui generis bill. This simply means
that Ghana can design a bill that will meet the
specific needs of our country and protect Ghanaian
farmers and Ghanaian plant breeders.

Our farmers are the first breeders and their
rights come first. It will not help Ghana to
protect the interests of Agribusiness corporations
which the current Plant Breeders Bill puts above
the laws of Ghana. Uganda's Parliament has
listened carefully to its people and recently
rejected a similar seed law that is part of the G8
New Alliance, G8NA, agriculture package, as is
Ghana's Plant Breeders Bill. Uganda has been under
the same USAID agribusiness pressures as Ghana. Is
Ghana less a democracy than Uganda?

Some Ghanaian scientists, along with our MPs,
think the bill will protect the work of Ghanaian
scientists. The intellectual property, IP,
protections in the Plant Breeders Bill are
unlikely to protect any Ghanaians or Ghanaian
interests. The way this works in developed
countries is that the corporations buy the
scientists' companies, or fund the research done
by the scientists. That will be easier for them to
do in Ghana. By contract, the TNCs then own the IP
rights to the scientists' discoveries. Someone
will profit, but it won't be the scientists.

Ghana's Plant Breeders Bill allows anyone in any
country in the UN to own the property rights to
Ghana's seeds and operate from outside Ghana,
taking with them all profits. Ghanaian farmers and
smallholders cannot compete with TNCs in the
courts for IP rights to their seeds. Far from
protecting farmers, IP rights are likely to raise
the cost of seed so it becomes prohibitive, and
the minimal protections for farmers as plant
breeders in the bill are so weak and ill defined
as to be useless.

In India, the price of Bt cotton seeds went up
8000% after GMOs and IP protection was introduced
and enforced. The price of patented GMO Bt cotton
seeds is already prohibitive for small farmers in
Burkina Faso. Farmers will not be able to save and
reuse seeds of protected varieties. If the Bill is
passed, farmers will not be able to freely save,
reuse, share, sell, and exchange seeds as they
have done for millennia.

As has happened in other countries, this corporate
welfare IP protection will price farmers out of
the market, and most will end up landless in the
city slums. The poor of Ghana will be subsidizing
Trans National Corporations under this bill. Under
the Plant Breeders Bill, a TNC can take Ghanaian
seeds, make some minimal alteration in the
laboratory and claim those seeds as its own,
supposedly the creation of the foreign
corporation, protected by intellectual property
rights.

The infamous Clause 23 of the bill puts the rights
of corporations above the laws of Ghana, to be
decided by a tribunal of "business-friendly"
Judges. Will those corporate judges protect the
interests of Ghana's farmers and scientists? Or
will they follow the interests of the corporations
who pay their lavish fees. Will the safe and
healthy foods we know become a thing of the past
due to corporate intellectual property rights?

When it comes to the Plant Breeders Bill you might
think Ghana is a one party state. The elites of
our political parties all seem intent on passing
the Plant Breeders Bill despite public outcry. The
Ghanaian people do not want this bill! Is Ghana
independent? Is Ghana a democracy? Let your MP
know! Let Parliament know what Ghanaians want!
Defeat the Plant Breeders Bill!

For Life, the Environment, and Social Justice!
Ali-Masmadi Jehu-Appiah,
Chairperson, FSG

Website: http://foodsovereigntyghana.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoodSovereignGH
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FoodSovereigntyGhana

For Life, the Environment, and Social Justice!
Social Media Outreach
Pan-Africanist International - a grammar of
Pan-Africanism and its manners of articulation.

Website:
http://www.panafricanistinternational.org/

Source - Food Sovereignty Ghana

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