FARMERS’ SEED RIGHTS IN BANGLADESH CONTEXT

Mar 31, 2025 | লেখালেখি

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The question of seed is a vital agenda for both the existence of the farmers as well as the persistence of the thousand-year-old traditional agriculture of the country. With a view to capturing the huge seed market of the country, the Multinational Companies (MNCs) have introduced patented seeds of hybrid and Genetically Modified (GM) varieties. On-farm conservation of these seeds is not possible which leads to wiping out of farmers’ own seeds. Patent on genetic resources for food and agriculture (GRFA) accelerate corporate control of the seed sector which is a great threat to the food security and livelihoods of small farmers. Patents will reduce access to seeds and genetic resources to farmers and breeders. They could also make seeds more expensive due to royalty payments, restrictive contracts, and increased commercialization. Once a patented seed is planted, companies can insist that farmers purchase new seed every year and penalize them for saving seeds. This compromises farmers’ rights to save, grow, exchange, and sell patented seeds. The use of patented seeds, plants and genetically modified animals would make small farmers dependent on the corporations that own the patents. This could fundamentally change the way of agriculture that is practiced in least developed and developing countries like Bangladesh by facilitating the growth of agribusiness and the decline of small farms and biodiversity.

The adopted and still endorsed practice of the Green Revolution has led to the increase of production but at the cost of the life of the farmland. Current practices of intensified farming require more industrial inputs, high-yielding, and hybrid varieties. The effectiveness of these technologies is still under scrutiny by various groups, but it is evident that, primarily, these inputs are costly. Moreover, the farmers have become dependent on the market for about all the agricultural inputs; the risks in crop production has drastically been increased; biodiversity has become degraded; environment has been polluted; human and animal health is under a great threat of hazards, and most ironically farmers are loosing their knowledge and resources.

The peasants of Bangladesh are already experiencing a tremendous seed crisis. The recent crisis of jute seed is a burning example in this regard. The problems of ever-increasing market price, businesspersons manipulated seed crisis, below quality seed, lower germination rate etc. that are increasing day by day and are going to be a great threat for their existence in the agricultural production system in near future. The corporations have already occupied about 80% of the vegetable seed market, and it is so far 20% for the rice seed market of Bangladesh. In the global context, only ten big multinational corporations control about 40% of the world seed market which indicates that the food security of the world will be controlled by only few multinational corporations- unimaginable. It is not far away when the multinational corporations will capture the whole seed market of the country. And that situation must be suicidal for the farmer as well as the country. Therefore, it is important to promote farmers’ rights to seed and empower the rural communities so that they can protect their own livelihoods.

Seemingly, it is very unfortunate that the government of Bangladesh has no initiative for conservation of indigenous seed resources as well as to protect farmer seed rights. On the contrary, the government policies are encouraging private sector to establish control over seeds. The government has already declared the National Seed Policy (NSP) to promote the seed industry in the private sector. Almost all the provisions of the NSP favor the corporate seed business. The policy also intends to consolidate the conditional opportunity that has already been given to the private sector to import hybrid rice seeds. But, very unfortunately, there is no provision to conserve the indigenous seed resources and biodiversity to what our government committed in the international forums like Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and Agenda 21 of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).

The multinational companies are promoting hybrid and GM seeds in Bangladesh. Despite the protest by reputed agricultural scientists, plant protection specialists, politicians, NGOs, environmentalists, and intellectuals, the National Seed Approval Committee of the government of Bangladesh approved the import of hybrid seed in 1998 without any prior assessment of the impacts of such seeds in our agriculture.  In addition, very recently, Bangladesh has entered into an agreement that will promote genetically modified crops. Under the National Agriculture Research System (NARS), four types of crops will be cultivated in Bangladesh, including drought-and-saline tolerant rice, late blight-resistant potato, fruit and shoot borer-resistant eggplant, and pod borer-resistant chickpea. This project is being co-funded by Cornell University, USA, and USAID. Both the hybrid and GM seeds have various problems and are considered to be a great threat to the existence of the poor farmers of the country.

Introduction

The question of seed is a vital agenda of the people of Bangladesh, particularly the farmers, who constitute more than sixty-six per cent of our population (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistic 2003). In the context of present scenario of agriculture, farmer seed rights is a burning issue for both the existence of the farmer as well as the thousand years old traditional agriculture of the country. Due to adoption of trade liberalization policies by the government of Bangladesh, which is imposed by World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) like World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) etc, the Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have come forward to control the agribusiness of the country. With a view to capture the huge seed market of the country, the MNCs have introduced patented seeds of hybrid and Genetically Modified (GM) varieties. On-farm conservation of these varieties is not possible, which leads to wiping out of farmers’ seeds.

In this context, Caritas Bangladesh (CB), along with the Society for Sustainable Agriculture in Bangladesh (SSA Bangladesh) and Unnayan Dhara (UD) have taken the issue of farmers’ seed rights on a priority basis. A massive awareness raising campaign along with policy advocacy as well as on-farm, in situ, ex situ and on-farm conservation of the indigenous seed resources are demand of this time to protect farmers’ seed rights. The solidarity of the like-minded organizations is also pivotal for success.

This document is jointly prepared by CB, SSA Bangladesh, and UD that reflects the organizational standpoint on the issue. The paper is the output of several grass root level, regional, and national workshops organized by CB and UD on the issue of Corporate Globalization and Farmers’ Rights.

Background

Bangladesh is an agro-based least least-developed country of South-East Asia. About 85% of her population living in the rural areas predominantly are small, marginal and landless farmers and fully depended on agriculture for their livelihood. The majority of the rural population is directly involved in food production through only with a meager 0.07 hectares of agricultural land per capita.

Before the so-called “green revolution” started in the early 1960s, the peasants of Bangladesh were self-sufficient for their seeds. They produced and preserved seeds of various crops in their houses, and mainly the female was engaged in seed preservation activities. There were about 12,500 varieties of rice available in Bangladesh, which were developed by the peasants for thousands of years. But, due to the introduction of High Yielding Varieties (HYV), almost all of the indigenous varieties are endangered, most of which are preserved in the gene bank of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) or other countries like America, China, Japan etc. Only a few of them are preserved in the gene bank of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI). These naturally developed varieties showed excellent ability to survive against the region-specific problems of crop production like flood, drought, salinity, soil problem, pest attack, etc.

The adopted and still endorsed practice of the Green Revolution has led to the increase of production but at the cost of the life of the farmland. The trend has been to use more amounts of inputs in the same land to produce crops. The practices have led to degradation of land fertility and productivity in terms of both quality and quantity. Current practices of intensified farming require more industrial inputs, high-yielding and hybrid varieties. The effectiveness of these technologies is still under scrutiny by various groups but it is evident that primarily these inputs are costly. Moreover, the farmers have become dependent on the market for almost all the agricultural inputs; the risks in crop production have drastically been increased; biodiversity has become degraded; environment has been polluted; human and animal health is under a great threat, and most ironically, farmers are losing their own knowledge and resources. The marginal farmers are driven to produce more to supply the market, but in doing so, he/she is not receiving his/her just value due to high input costs.

The peasants of Bangladesh are already experiencing a tremendous seed crisis. The recent crisis of jute seed is a burning example in this regard. The problems of ever-increasing market price, businesspersons manipulated seed crisis, below quality seed, lower germination rate etc. that are increasing day by day and are going to be a great threat for their existence in agricultural production system in near future. The corporations have already occupied about 80% of the vegetable seed market, and it is so far 20% for the rice seed market of Bangladesh. In the global context, only ten big multinational corporations control about 40% of the world seed market which indicates that the food security of the world will be controlled by only a few multinational corporations- unimaginable. It is not far away when the multinational corporations will capture the whole seed market of the country. That situation must be suicidal for the farmer as well as for the country.

Nowadays, after the inclusion of agriculture in the trade liberalization agreements of WTO, the multinational corporations have identified seed business as a thrust sector for their monopoly business. In order to achieve their target, they are developing new varieties like hybrid and GM-varieties by using terminator technology so that the farmers fail to produce their own seeds for cultivation.  This will wipe out the farmers’ own seeds from their hands and create an opportunity for their monopoly business. The introduction of such varieties will also promote the business of agrochemicals, agro-equipment and other highly expensive technologies of the multinational corporations. As a result, the peasants will become fully dependent on the corporations for their crop production. This is a great threat for the existence of the poor peasants of Bangladesh in agriculture.

Corporations’ Control over Seeds

The history of the corporate seed business is not very old. The corporations became keenly interested in capturing the world market of agro-business in the name of Research & Development when the first high-yielding variety of wheat, Norin-10B was introduced to the market in 1935. In order to capture the Asian rice market, Rockefeller and Ford Foundation established International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Philippines in 1960. It was the starting point of so so-called ‘green revolution’ that paved the way for the corporate business of seeds, agrochemicals, and agro-equipments.

The big multinational companies came forward to capture the world seed market at that time. Since the early 1970s the pesticides industry has gone through a period of consolidation. Today, after a flurry of mergers and acquisitions, corporate domination of the pesticide market and the food system in general has reached a peak. The top five agrochemical companies, Syngenta (a merger of Novartis and AstraZeneca), Aventis (Rhone-Poulanc and AgrEvo), Monsanto (present name Pharmacia), BASF, and DuPont, hold dominant positions in the seeds, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and related markets. Presently, these companies account for nearly two-thirds of the commercial seed market and virtually 100 percent of the market for GM seeds. Monsanto alone occupies 91% of the genetic crop of the world. Only three big companies, Monsanto (Pharmacia), Aventis Crop Science, and Syngenta controls the major part of the world agriculture and seed market.

Multinational companies captured the whole sector of food and agriculture, which ultimately caused serious suffering to the farmers, losing their own seed varieties. The farmers in Bangladesh are under pressure to use hybrid seeds and, gradually, the local traditional seed varieties. Farmers are deprived of their rights to preserve and use local and indigenous varieties of seeds. Therefore, it is important to promote farmers’ rights to seed and empower the rural communities so that they can protect their own livelihoods.

TRIPS, UPOV, and Farmers’ Seed Rights

Access to Plant Genetic Resources (PGRs) is critical for the propagation of new plant varieties. Through informal breeding and in situ conservation, farmers and indigenous communities developed an infinite variety of landraces and wild varieties. Public sector researchers and commercial plant breeders seek their knowledge to enable continued research and development of new varieties. Landraces and their wild relatives are in the public domain and, hence are freely available to researchers and commercial plant breeders. An international Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime, anchored on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), seeks to provide exclusive ownership of new plant varieties to commercial breeders.

TRIPS and UPOV are, however not in conformity with two treaties arrived under the aegis of the United Nations (UN). Both the Conventions on Biological Diversity (CBD in 1992), which preceded TRIPS, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR in 2001) adopted subsequent to the TRIPS, seek to secure the rights of farmers and indigenous communities to PGRs. Unfortunately, unlike TRIPS, these two treaties do not have an enforcement mechanism.

The grant of patents and plant breeders’ rights has two grave implications for access to PGRs and the food security of the developing world, as follows.

First, farmers will be denied the right to save patented or protected seeds for subsequent planting and will have to buy seeds for each season. Globally, the livelihoods of 1.4 billion farmers are at stake. They lose control over plant varieties to corporations that control the seed market. Seed companies have already sued hundreds of Canadian and US farmers for using farm-saved patented seeds. Farmers in developing countries will not be spared. Six big companies (Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow, Aventies, and Grupo Pulsar) already own 74% of the patents on major food crops, including rice, wheat, maize, soya, and Sorghum. There are now over 9000 patents on staple crops, and just four multinational companies hold 44% of these.

Second, farmers and researchers will have to seek permission and pay loyalties before they use the patented seeds. This will have consequences for biodiversity. Farmers who traditionally bred and cultivated their own seeds evolved a great variety to meet the special requirements of the ecosystem in which they cultivate. Corporations, however, have no incentive to breed a vast variety of seeds. Economies of scale in research and development lead corporations to focus on only commercially viable varieties. Moreover, laboratory-developed varieties can never replicate the dynamic interactions that take place in the natural ecosystem to produce an immense variety of seeds.

Patent on genetic resources for food and agriculture (GRFA) accelerate corporate control of the seed sector which is a great threat to the food security and livelihoods of small farmers. Patents will reduce access to seeds and genetic resources to farmers and breeders. They could also make seeds more expensive due to royalty payments, restrictive contracts and increased commercialization. Once a patented seed is planted, companies can insist that farmers purchase new seed every year, and penalize them for saving seeds. This compromises farmers’ rights to save, grow, exchange and sell of patented seeds. The use of patented seeds, plants, and genetically modified animals would make small farmers dependent on the corporations that own the patents. This could fundamentally change the way agriculture is practiced in the least developed and developing countries like Bangladesh by facilitating the growth of agribusiness and the decline of small farms and biodiversity.

Pirating Indigenous Knowledge and Seed Resources

Species or varieties of diversified characteristics are preconditioned for developing new varieties because the scientists cannot create gene that regulates the biological character of a plant or animal. So, they have to depend on naturally occurring characteristics of plants or animals. They can only combine characteristics to develop a new character. Bangladesh, like some other Asian and African countries, is very rich in Biodiversity. So, the developed countries and their multinational companies have done and are doing their best to capture the biological diversity of the third world countries of Asia and Africa. They are stealing our genetic resources of plants and animals by using the opportunity of ignorance, unconsciousness, technological weakness, and poverty of the countries.

We believe that Intellectual Property Rights are inappropriate about living organisms and indigenous knowledge, which should be held as non-devisable public goods. But TRIPS has made it possible for companies to patent and exploit the traditional knowledge and local genetic resources- usually plant and medicines- of poor communities worldwide. In the developing world, genetic resources and indigenous knowledge are intricately linked, with the holders of indigenous and community knowledge also the users and preservers of the genetic resources.

Instead of harnessing this knowledge for the benefit of all and the sustainable development of communities, companies are using it for their own profit.

Patents of genetic resources generally do not recognize the rights of local communities to their traditional knowledge. Claming private property rights on plants, processes, and knowledge developed over countries by generations of farmers or traditional healers raises serious questions about the application of the concept of ‘prior art’ in intellectual patent regimes. Indeed, such behavior can be viewed as a form of intellectual property theft.

Bangladesh was very rich in diversity of rice seeds with about 12,500 identified indigenous varieties. But, we have only a few varieties at the farmers’ hands. Most of the varieties are preserved in the gene bank of IRRI. Once, America raised the question of bioterrorism and brought the seeds to Fort Collins and Fort Nox. Seed is now an issue of war because the owner of seeds will control the whole economy of the world.

The patent of the anti-fungal properties of neem, the healing properties of turmeric, and the aromatic qualities of basmati rice are the example of bio-piracy, which illustrate the problem with patent laws allowing legal rights to traditional knowledge and the genetic resources for agriculture. Unfortunately, we have no any records or information in regards of bio-piracy.

Status of Seed Resources in Bangladesh

The means of satisfying nine-tenths or more of all the basic survival needs of the people and farmers of Bangladesh come from the biological diversity. Probably only half or less of this essential diversity comes from the formal cultivation of food and fibers. All these resources come from genetic diversity (a part of biological diversity), which the country is losing every year, and no reliable information is available.

Records show, in 1915, the Agricultural Research Station in Dhaka estimated that there were about 15,000 varieties of rice in Bangladesh but after 70 years, the BRRI could collect about 6000 accessions. Of these, only about 2000 accessions are available to plant breeders, and there are doubts whether these all are viable seeds. From 1910 to 1925, about 2000 varieties of Aus, transplanted Aman, and deep-water traditional rice varieties were grown. By the eighties, a survey could list a total of 12479 names of rice, most of which have disappeared at present. Only a few High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of rice along with the few hybrid varieties are being cultivated at present. The most popular HYV rice varieties are not local; they have been modified in the laboratory and introduced among the farmers.

In the late 1960s, HYV seeds for rice were imported to support the Accelerated Food Production Program sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Thus, during the 1970s, large quantities of HYV seeds were imported from the IRRI in the Philippines and from India. In the year 1970, the BRRI was established to develop varieties that better suited to local growing conditions. So far, the institute has developed 41 HYV varieties and a hybrid variety. On the other hand, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has developed 21 varieties of wheat, 4 of maize (including 3 hybrid varieties), 32 of potato, 24 of pulses, 21 of oilseeds, 41 of vegetable and 26 of fruits.

To meet the growing needs for food grains, the Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) was established in 1960s. The main functions of BADC were to procure modern agricultural inputs (i.e. HYV seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and agro-equipment) and distribute these to the farmer at a highly subsidized cost. The subsidized input cost of BADC was mostly borne by the foreign donor agencies.

But up to 1970s, the diffusion rate of these technologies was very slow due mainly to the unwillingness of the farmers to change their traditional farming system. Under such conditions, the donor agencies advised to gradually reduce subsidy on inputs and to encourage privatization of the input markets. Consequently, a series of privatization and deregulation policies were implemented in the agricultural input market beginning from the 1980s, which therefore became a significant decade in the history of agriculture in Bangladesh. Since then, in the seed, fertilizer, pesticide, and agro-equipment markets, the distribution systems were gradually transferred from the BADC to private traders/multinational companies. At present, the multinational companies, along with local agents, are controlling almost the whole market of seed, agrochemicals, and agro-equipment.

A large number of alien species/varieties of different crops have been introduced in the ecosystem of Bangladesh without proper scientific investigation on their possible impact on the ecosystem and native species. Moreover, recently Bangladesh has entered into an agreement that will promote genetically modified crops. Under the National Agriculture Research System (NARS), four types of crops will be cultivated in Bangladesh including drought-and-saline tolerant rice, late blight resistant potato, fruit and shoot borer resistant eggplant and pod borer resistant chickpea. This project is being co-funded by Cornell University, USA and USAID.

Another research work is going on to develop a vitamin A rich GM variety of rice named “golden rice” which is patented by the multinational company Syngenta. BRRI is conducting the research with support from IRRI. Bangladesh is very rich in vitamin A rich vegetable and fruits. It is, therefore, absurd to develop and promote a vitamin A rich GM crop, which is patented by a MNC. But the government is positively considering to promote the variety.

In this context, Bangladesh needs to enact precautionary principles about HYV, Hybrid & GM crop varieties but there is no serious attempt at the Government level. Rather, the GoB has recently formulated a National Program of Biotechnology as a complementary route to fight poverty and food insecurity. There is a National Executive Committee on Biotechnology as well as taskforce for sustainable biotechnological development.

At more fundamental level, the government of Bangladesh, owing to either a dependency on international largeness for survival or due to a thriving set of internal vested interest, has adopted the policies of privatization, deregulation and liberalization that have ultimately led to further pauperization.

Future Trend of Seed Business in Bangladesh

As stated earlier, the multinational corporation are strengthening their control over the seeds sector of the world, especially agro-based third world countries like Bangladesh. Patents promote the consolidation of global seed and agri-chemical businesses, concentrating power over seed and seed choices in a very few hands. Poor farmers are already vulnerable players in the marketplace, and to be operating in a non-competitive market biased against them increases vulnerability.

Transnational Corporations (TNCs) are paying premium prices to acquire local seed companies in the least developed and developing countries in anticipation of monopoly rents once the IPRs are fully enforced. If this trend continues, the choices of seed available to poor farmers will be severely limited. Already, Monsanto controls 60 percent of the corn market in Brazil. Three companies, Cargill, Pioneer and CP-Dekalb, control 70 percent of the Asian seed market.

If TRIPS provisions and practices are transposed, it will be a disaster for the poor farmers in the least developed and developing countries like Bangladesh.  Traditionally, they rely on farm-saved seeds and only enter the market to purchase seeds about once in several years. But, if they buy and plant patented seeds, companies can insist that they purchase new seeds every year. Seeds are often sold in a package with fertilizers, pesticides, which further increases farmer’s dependence on the market while also increasing the risk of indebtedness when crops fail due to adverse climatic conditions. It would also decrease farmers’ access to seeds, reduce efforts in publicly funded plant breeding, increase the loss of genetic resources, prevent seed sharing, and could put poor farmers out of business.

National Seed Policy and Farmer Seed Rights

Seemingly, it is very unfortunate that the government of Bangladesh has no initiative for the conservation of indigenous seed resources as well as to protect farmer seed rights. On the contrary, the government policies are encouraging the private sector to establish control over seed. So far, BADC is the only public sector corporation supplying quality seeds. At present, only a small portion (about 5%) of the required quality seeds for different crops is supplied by the BADC. The government has targeted to increase it to 10% in the fifth five-year plan. The rest of the seeds are produced, preserved, and used under private management, especially at the farmers’ level. Government has already declared the National Seed Policy (NSP) to promote seed industry in the private sector. In the pursuance of the seed policy, the government has revised the Seed Act of 1977 and also formulated seed rules in the light of Seed Act (Amendment) 1997. Almost all the provisions of the NSP favor the corporate seed business. The policy also intends to consolidate the conditional opportunity that has already been given to the private sector to import hybrid rice seeds. But, very unfortunately, there is no provision to conserve the indigenous seed resources and biodiversity to what our government committed in the international forum like Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and Agenda 21 of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).

Hybrid, GM Seeds, and Farmers Seed Rights

The multinational companies are promoting hybrid and GM seeds in Bangladesh. Despite the protest by reputed agricultural scientists, plant protection specialists, politicians, NGOs, environmentalists, and intellectuals, the National Seed Approval Committee of the government of Bangladesh approved the import of hybrid seed in 1998 without any prior assessment of the impacts of such seeds in our agriculture.  In addition, very recently, Bangladesh has entered into an agreement that will promote genetically modified crops. Under the National Agriculture Research System (NARS), four types of crops will be cultivated in Bangladesh, including drought-and-saline tolerant rice, late blight resistant potato, fruit and shoot borer resistant eggplant, and pod borer resistant chickpea. This project is being co-funded by Cornell University, USA, and USAID. Both the hybrid and GM seeds have various problems and are considered to be a great threat to the existence of the poor farmers of the country. The major problems are identified as follows.

Hybrid seed

• On-farm conservation is not possible for the farmer for cultivation in the subsequent season. The farmers are bound to purchase seed from the company every year
• The genetic characteristics of these seeds are very unstable
• Very much vulnerable to pest attack
• The price is very high
• The market is fully controlled by the company
• Require excessive fertilizer and pesticides
• Yield drastically falls down due to recurrent cultivation for several years
• The cost of production as well as the risk remains very high
• Very much sensitive to unfavorable conditions

GM Seed

• GM seeds are developed based on the unsustainable agriculture system of the green revolution. More over, dependency on chemical inputs will more strongly than ever before be built into the agricultural system. This is not at all applicable to the sustainable and holistic concept of ecological agriculture.
• We know far too little about the risks and uncertainties involved in these techniques, which makes it very dangerous to use genetically engineered crops in agriculture.
• There is a big risk of GMOs spreading out of control and it is very difficult to stop once it has been released in nature that is a great threat fo the environment.
• Allergies, unexpected toxins and their health hazards have not been considered enough from the researchers. So far, we have only experienced a small number of cases but there is a great risk that this will become a very serious problem if GMOs are commonly used in agriculture.
• GM seeds are so far used for very shortsighted corporate benefits.
• GM seeds and the handful of giant multinational companies that controls it will, through WTO patents and regulations further exploit the poor farmers’ of least developed and developing countries.
• Sensitive to unfavorable growing conditions

Haridhan: A Farmer’s Innovation of New Rice Variety

‘Haridhan’ is a local variety of rice discovered by Mr. Haripada Kapali a farmer of Ashannagar village under sadar upazila of Jhenaidah district. This variety, cultivated in Aman season, has got some unique features that have attracted farmers’ attention. Unnayan Dhara conducted a study on “Comparative Performance of Haridhan with two other commonly used verities” at Modhupur village of Jhenidah district. Some unique characteristic of Haridhan were reported in the study, which are stated below.

Unique Features of Haridhan

1.     Haridhan gives substantial yield

Haridhan provides substantial yield compared to other popular varieties cultivated in the T-Aman season. The study result (Table-1) reveals that Haridhan gave almost same yield (4.3 t/ha) compared to BR-11 (4.4 t/ha) one of the best yielded variety in T-Aman season. It also produced good quality of straw having higher market price than that of other varieties.

Case-1: Haridhan is a high-yielding variety

Mr. Habibur Rahman a poor farmer of Madhupur village of Jhenaidah district, Mr. Habibur Rahman cultivated Haridhan in his 23 decimal of land.  He got an excellent yield of 4.9 t/ha. He made a substantial profit of Tk. 2720.00 (46,393.00 Tk/ha) from his piece of land while he expended only Tk. 1305.00 (14,014.57 Tk/ha). He used very less amount of Chemical fertilizer, costing Tk.185 and no pesticides. Many neighboring farmers have become encouraged and collected seed from him for sowing in the next season.

2.     Excellent survivability under unfavorable conditions

Haridhan has shown excellent survivability under different unfavorable climatic and soil conditions, which is clear from the case below.

Case-2: Haridhan is to some extent drought tolerant

Mr. Abdul Khaleque is a farmer of Madhupur Village under Sadar Upazila of Jhenidah district. He cultivated Haridhan in his 13 decimal of land in T-aman season for the first time. His field was badly affected by two unfavorable natural conditions. Firstly, the field was affected by severe drought at the maximum tillering stage. And, very unfortunately, the plot was also inundated by rain-induced floodwater later on. In this circumstances, he let alone the hope of any yield.

But, in the end, he got a considerable yield of 3.7 t/ha while the flood-affected fields of Swarna (an Indian Variety) were mostly damaged and produced almost no yield. The flood affected BR- 11 survived to some extent but produced a very low yield.

Case-3: Haridhan is to some extent flood tolerant

“I almost gave up nursing my plot anymore and I became frustrated because I thought I would not get the expected yield. Just after transplantation, the seedlings were inundated, which caused great damage to the tender seedlings. But, very surprisingly the seedlings survived and at last produced good yield,” said Gulam Sarwar, a farmer of Madhupur village of Jhenidah district. He cultivated Haridhan in his 12 decimal of land and got a very good yield of 4.1 t/ha.

3. Lower uptake of chemical fertilizer:

Haridhan needed lower chemical fertilizers (Average cost Tk 2453.96/ha) than BR-11 (Average cost Tk 2806.70/ha). The farmers opined that Haridhan can give good yield even in the low fertile soil where other varieties fail.

4. Lower pest infestation:

Pest infestation, both insects and disease,s was found to be very low in Haridhan than in BR-11 and BR-30. It was found resistant to rice stem borer.

5. Haridhan yielding a higher amount of straw:

Haridhan produced a higher amount of high-quality straw that is sold in the market at a higher rate than that of other available rice varieties.

What to do for Protecting Farmer Seed Rights

• Banning the import and promotion of seeds of hybrid and GM varieties that can not be preserved by the farmers for growing in the next season
• Strengthening research for increasing yield and cost-effectiveness of indigenous varieties of crops.
• Promotion of indigenous varieties
• To encourage farmers to diversify cropping
• In situ and ex- situ conservation of indigenous varieties
• Community seed bank development
• Seed Resource Centre Development
• Proper documentation of biodiversity for protecting bio-piracy
• Patronizing farmers’ innovation (such as Haridhan) and indigenous knowledge. And study, conservation and promotion of Haridhan
• Strengthening BADC so that it can meet the total demand of quality seeds
• Policy advocacy for conservation and strengthening research on indigenous seeds
• Policy advocacy for resisting the introduction of hybrid and GM crops
• Awareness campaign to raise farmers’ voices for their seed rights
• Networking with like-minded NGOs funded by Caritas & APHD
• Capacity building of both farmers and NGOs on conservation, development and promotion of indigenous varieties
• Resisting corporate control over seed resources
• Resisting patent on life form
• Revision of TRIPS, resisting UPOV and developing a sui generics system for deserving Intellectual property rights in the light of Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD 1992).

Conclusion

The question of seed is a vital agenda for both the existence of the farmer and the country’s thousand-year-old traditional agriculture. To capture the country’s huge seed market, the MNCs have introduced patented seeds of hybrid and Genetically Modified (GM) varieties. On-farm conservation of these varieties is not possible, which leads to wiping out farmers’ own seeds.

Patent on genetic resources for food and agriculture (GRFA) accelerate corporate control of the seed sector which is a great threat to the food security and livelihoods of small farmers. Patents will reduce access to seeds and genetic resources to farmers and breeders. They could also make seeds more expensive due to royalty payments, restrictive contracts, and increased commercialization. Once a patented seed is planted, companies can insist that farmers purchase new seed every year and penalize them for saving seeds. The compromises farmers’ rights to save, grow, exchange and sell patented seeds. The use of patented seeds, plants and genetically modified animals would make small farmers dependent on the corporations that own the patents. This could fundamentally change the way agriculture is practiced in the least developed and developing countries like Bangladesh by facilitating the growth of agribusiness and the decline of small farms and biodiversity.

The peasants of Bangladesh are already experiencing a tremendous seed crisis. The problems of ever-increasing market price, businesspersons manipulated seed crisis, below quality seed, lower germination rate etc. that are increasing day by day and going to be a great threat for their existence in agricultural production system in near future. The corporations have already occupied about 80% of vegetable seed market and it is so far 20% for rice seed market of Bangladesh. In the global context, only ten big multinational corporations control about 40% of the world seed market which indicates that only a few multinational corporations will control the food security of the world which is just unimaginable. It is not far away when the multinational corporations will capture the whole seed market of the country. That situation must be suicidal for the farmer as well as for the country.

Seemingly, it is very unfortunate that the government of Bangladesh has no initiative for conservation of indigenous seed resources as well as to protect farmer seed rights. On the contrary, the government policies are encouraging private sector to establish control over seed. The government has already declared the National Seed Policy (NSP) to promote the seed industry in the private sector. Almost all the provisions of the NSP favor the corporate seed business. The policy also intends to consolidate the conditional opportunity that has already been given to the private sector to import hybrid rice seeds. But, very unfortunately, there is no provision to conserve the indigenous seed resources and biodiversity to what our government committed in the international instruments like Biodiversity Convention and Agenda 21.

In the aforesaid context, it is a crucial issue to protect farmers’ seed rights. Only a few NGOs in Bangladesh have taken the issue into consideration, but quite insufficient. Unfortunately, the farmers are not concerned at all about the tremendous impact of corporate control over seed resources. Massive awareness campaign as well as policy advocacy is needed. The solidarity of like-minded organizations is also essential for success.