URFIG-supported Document about Agriculture
OAPI UNDERMINES FARMERS’ RIGHTS
IN FRANCOPHONE AFRICA
Cotonou (Benin), 27 February 2002
Non-government organisations in francophone Africa are protesting against the
revised Bangui Agreement, a new law to be administered by the African
Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI). It is scheduled to come into force on
28 February 2002. This agreement, signed by OAPI’s 15 member states in
February 1999, introduces -- for the first time ever -- a regime of intellectual
property rights on seeds in francophone Africa. The Bangui Agreement was revised
without any consultation with or participation of farmers, even though they will
be seriously affected by the new law. The agreement restricts the rights of
farmers to save seeds from their harvests and imposes a system of royalty
payments on commercial planting material.
The revision of the Bangui Agreement is a response to the World Trade
Organisation’s (WTO) mandatory rule that members enact intellectual property
rights over plant varieties. Both the International Union for the Protection of
New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO) pressurised OAPI to change its basic law by adopting the
specialised plant patenting system administered by UPOV. However, the UPOV
system only protects the interests of multinational companies and those who
promote industrial agriculture.
The revised Bangui Agreement provides exclusive rights (monopolies) to those who
develop plant varieties which are new, distinct, uniform and stable. This
completely excludes farmers’ varieties and the traditional knowledge that goes
with them, even though these materials form the basis of all modern plant
varieties. From now on, farmers in francophone Africa will have to pay breeders
a royalty on legally protected seeds. And for many crops -- fruits,
ornamentals and forestry species, to start off -- farmers will be prohibited
from saving a part of their harvest for re-sowing. The impacts of the UPOV
system are familiar to the industrialised countries, where it was developed:
genetic erosion, loss of traditional knowledge, increased privatisation of
agricultural research and the concentration of the seed industry in the hands of
a few transnational corporations.
However, alternatives exist. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has worked
out a model legislation to protect not only the rights of breeders, as WTO
dictates, but also the rights of farmers, local communities and access to
genetic resources, as the legally binding Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD) simultaneously calls for. The "African model legislation for the
protection of the rights of local communities, farmers and breeders, and for the
regulation of access to biological resources" is much more attuned to the
realities of the continent than what UPOV and WIPO have impressed upon
francophone Africa. It provides a basis for each African country to develop its
national legislation in consideration not only of CBD and WTO, but also the
interests of its people, especially the farmers and traditional healers. In
fact, the heads of state of all the OAU member countries have formally endorsed
this model legislation as the recommended basis for national laws.
By ignoring the OAU proposal and merely importing the UPOV system from the
industrialised world, the revised Bangui Agreement creates a schism
between francophone Africa and the rest of the continent. Outside of
agriculture, other vital sectors such as education and health are equally
threatened by this new law, which touch all areas of intellectual property:
patenting, copyright, etc.. It is therefore urgent, in the interests of
the people across francophone Africa, to appeal to the OAPI member states to
defer the enactment of the revised Bangui Agreement and to consider the
Model Law of the OAU instead.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
-in English : Alexis Vaughan by e-mail: alexis@grain.org,
by phone on +33 5 61 03
00 97 or fax on +33 5 61 03 12 97
or by fax on +229 33 79 15
Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN) is an international
non-governmental organisation which promotes the sustainable management
and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over
genetic resources and local knowledge.
For more information about GRAIN visit www.grain.org or contact Alexis
Vaughan as above. Other links of interest:
www.grain.org/publications/oau-en.cfm
www.grain.org/publications/dec991-en.cfm
The countries that have already ratified the revised Bangui
Agreement:
MEMBERS OF THE AFRICAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANISATION (OAPI) - Country and
Date of ratification of the revised Bangui Agreement -
Benin--
Burkina Faso-8 June 2001
Cameroon-9 July 1999
Central African Republic--
Congo--
Côte d’Ivoire-24 May 2000
Gabon -27 December 1999
Guinea Bissau-
Guinea-13 July 2001
Guinea Equatorial (recent membership)-23 November 2000
Mali-19 June 2000
Mauritania-5 July 2001
Niger--
Senegal-9 March 2000
Chad-24 November 2000
Togo-29 November 2001