Food Sovereignty Platform, a pressure group in Ghana, has called on government to swiftly intervene and stop the processes that seek to pass the Plant Variety Bill formally known as Plant Breeders Bill.
According to the platform, the bill is hostile to smallholder farmers and farmers in general, and does not allow farmers to sell and exchange seeds from the so-called “protected varieties.”
It could be recalled that in 2013 a bill entitled Plant Breeders Act that was passed by Parliament to give grants and protection to plant breeders to develop and sell seeds to farmers without interference from government or local farmers.
But speaking at a Press Conference in Bolgatanga on November 5, the National President of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Abdul Rahman Mohammed, said the bill if assent by the current President, Nana Akufo Addo, it will undermine Ghana’s biodiversity and food sovereignty.
“The bill violates the Ghanaian value system and places the rights of the plant breeders over and above the local farmers’ rights. We are left to wonder in whose interest this bill is serving if the government has even been moved to consider the prospect of the bill promoting biopiracy of Ghana’s genetic resources and infringing on ‘The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing’, of which Ghana is a signatory by ratification.”
Mr. Abdul Rahman further noted that the current government though has not assented to the bill, there was a possibility of suspending the assent before Parliament was dissolved.
“We are requesting that the President, Nana Akufo Addo should give ear to the wisdom of Ghanaian farmers and hold up the bill and further call for open and transparent engagement of all stakeholders. Because of the President assent to this bill, it will mean that he (the President) does not have Ghanaian farmers and agriculture at heart.”
The Food Sovereignty Platform, made up of the General Agricultural Workers Union, Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Food Sovereignty Ghana, Vegetarians Association of Ghana, Rastafarian Council of Ghana, and other partners, has stated that it will use all avenues legally and socially permissible to oppose the bill and fight for the rights and dignity of the small-holder farmers.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHZ|Moses Apiah/Ghana
