Photo: Lindi Botha
New regulations around plant breeders’ rights (PBR) are expected to boost seed technology availability in South Africa, while providing greater scope for subsistence farmers to replant and trade seed obtained from the previous season’s crop.
The Department of Agriculture has published the new Plant Breeders’ Rights Act No. 12 of 2018, which will replace the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act No. 15 of 1976. The changes are aimed at aligning South Africa’s regulations with international standards.
The most notable revisions in the new Act include a wider scope of plants eligible for protection, which is now extended to all genera and species. Periods of protection have been revised up from 25 to 30 years for fruit trees, vines, sugar cane and potatoes, and from 20 to 25 years for all other crops.
Allowance has also been made for certain categories of farmers to save and trade seed, whereas previously all farmers could only keep back seed for replanting on their own farms.
Dr Miekie Human, science and policy manager at the South African National Seed Organisation (SANSOR), explained to Farmer’s Weekly that farmers officially classified as subsistence farmers would now be allowed to keep back seed for replanting, and trade it with other subsistence farmers.
“Small-scale commercial farmers may keep back seed, but not trade it. Farmers falling into the mid-sized to mega category may keep back seed for replanting, but should it exceed a certain threshold, must now [report it to] the applicable seed company.”
The Act also contained a clause that allowed a seed company to request remuneration for retained seed.
Human said that SANSOR interpreted this clause through the South African Cultivar and Technology Agency’s (SACTA) end point royalty system, where a portion of statutory levies were paid to seed breeders to compensate for lost income as a result of seed that is held back. SANSOR was however in the process of gaining greater clarification over the clause.
Human noted that in practice, the new Act would not bring big changes in how the industry currently operates.
“We have always supported farmer choice, and the protection of PBRs. We won’t have innovation if PBRs are not protected and the new Act ensures that their investments are protected for longer, which will encourage more companies to invest in South Africa.”
Speaking about the benefit of protecting plant breeders’ investments, Andrew Bennett, CEO of SACTA, said that levies introduced in the wheat and soya bean industries, where seed was most often held back for replanting, gave seed breeders security and made it worth their while to invest in bringing new technology to the country.
“Since the inception of these levies, we’ve seen over 80 new soya bean and 50 new wheat varieties enter South Africa. Yields have improved to the point where South Africa has gone from being a net importer of soya beans to a net exporter. The annual yield improvements for both crops have been higher than in most other countries, but only during the last five years where the levy has been in place.”
