The Hindu : Karnataka / Mangalore News : Campaign launched to protest `anti-farmer' Seed Bill

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 11, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Mangalore

Campaign launched to protest `anti-farmer' Seed Bill

Staff Correspondent

MLAs and MPs will be urged to pressure the Centre to withdraw the bill

MANGALORE: The Nagarika Seva Trust, a non-governmental organisation based at Guruvayanakere, with other organisations will launch a campaign against the Seed Bill, 2004 in villages of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi to create awareness among farmers on the anti-farmer provisions in the bill, Somnath Nayak, its president, said here on Saturday.

Addressing presspersons he said that jathas will be held in all taluk headquarters and farmers will register their protest with the Government through Tahsildars. The trust will pressure local bodies such as taluk panchayats and zilla panchayat to pass a resolution to oppose the bill. MLAs and MPs in the region will be urged to convince the Centre to withdraw the bill.

A State-level meeting will be held here in the first week of September to urge the Centre to drop the bill. Vandana Shiva, Head, Research Foundation, Delhi, will address the meeting.

Representatives of various organisations will attend the meet.

B. M. Kumaraswamy, an economist, said if the bill is made an Act, farmers will lose their rights to produce and exchange seeds as they will need to produce the required quality assessment certificates for the same.

He said that as mentioned in the draft of the bill, the Central Seed Committee will have only two representatives of farmers and an equal number of representatives from companies producing seeds. The draft of the bill says that to market genetically modified seeds the companies should get clearance under the Environmental Act, 1986. But even if the companies did not get permission under this Act the committee could give permission to market the same temporarily for two years. This will provide scope for multinational seed companies to control the market for seeds in India.

He said that 80 per cent of India's seed supply is through traditional methods of production and the rest from public sector seed breeding stations and seed farms. The bill forces farmers to register all of seeds with a national authority, he said.

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