Save the Zambian Farmer and Indigenous Seed: Opposing the Draft Plant Breeders Rights Bill

As President of the United National Independence Party (UNIP) I am appalled to hear that a Plant Breeders’ Rights Bill is to be tabled to Parliament for the June 2024 session.

The entire process of repealing and replacing the existing Plant Breeders Rights Act of 2007 raises alarm bells.

Did the farmers complain? Of course not. 

Did ordinary Zambians demand for this law to be revised? – NO

Did the Seed Control and Certification Institute (SCCI) consult Zambian farmers and plant breeders in drafting the new Bill? – NO

Did the SCCI consult any Government lawyer before the Bill was finalised and subjected to stakeholder consultations? - NO

We understand that the SCCI applied to an overseas international certification body in Europe on behalf of the country for Plant Breeders to be recognised and they were told by the European body that they needed to change this Law in order to be admitted.

This is insanity of the highest order! How should Zambians surrender their God given resources to Multinational companies and destroy the cultural biodiversity to please some international standard

Zambian farmers have been saving, sharing and reusing seeds for generations, and with the advent of intellectual property rights in plant breeding, some of the protected seeds are part of this seed system. 

The 2007 PBR Act has exceptions that have allowed farmers to continue this practice even on protected varieties of farm saved seeds. The 2024 Bill however shall take away this right.

The current PBR Act is adequate; there is no need to repeal and replace it. It guarantees the rights of farmers in Zambia to save, share and reuse farm saved seeds, with adequate provisions to protect seed and plant breeders’ interests.

The Zambian farmers have no issues with the Act so what’s changed to usher in such haste and lack of transparency a Bill with no public consultation taking place prior to the writing of a Draft Bill.

Whose interests is driving this Bill? We do not need to be geniuses to say foreign interests and proxies, keen to enslave us with hybrid and GMO seeds, and expensive chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

In this light today I address the multitude of Zambian farmers across the length and breadth of Mother Zambia, and indeed the many Zambians who depend on our urban and rural farmers, to bear witness to something unheard of in modern times or in the annals of our history.

Today I ask the most senior legal experts in Government at the Ministry of Justice who are gatekeepers into what constitutes good Law that protects national interest and heritage of Zambians: how can this be?

How is it that we are allowing a government entity to fashion a Draft Bill that is intended to become Law. A Law that will criminalise the Zambian farmer and destroy aeons and generations of indigenous knowledge and practise?

Seed use throughout Zambia through preservation and sharing and time honoured traditional methods of seed breeding, selection and verification by the Zambian farmer has withstood countless droughts and built immunity to withstand attack from local pests.

This national treasure house stands to be destroyed and rendered obsolete and worse still constitute a criminal offence for the Zambian farmer punishable by jail or fine should a farmer dare to keep their farm saved  seed, share the same or or save it to plant again in the next seasons.

The Zambian farmer under the new Draft Plant Breeders Bill, will be deemed a criminal liable of being jailed for 10 years or fined up to 10,000 Zambian kwacha. This is preposterous!

Have we lost our connection to God and all that is good.

Its insanity never imagined before that the Draft Plant Breeders Bill whilst turning every Zambian farmer that saves, uses, shares seed into a criminal, seeks to protect commercial seed Breeders, seed companies and other commercial entities as the sole and legal owner to the vast array of Zambia’s seed diversity.

The Draft Plant Breeders Bill paves the way for Zambian farmers to be forced to buy hybrid seeds every year that cannot be reused or recycled including the very expensive chemical fertilisers that contribute to soil degradation.

Recycled open pollinated seeds can be grown using purely organic methods of permaculture, a time honoured traditional method that not only is in harmony with mother nature but increases and promotes soil fertility and contributes to enhanced and improved quality and resilience of the gene pool.

Farmers have been selecting and improving seeds for centuries. The Zambian farmer must prove he has added value to be a plant breeder, why when the proof is in the eating of indigenous food, such as millet, sorghum, cassava etc, daily by all Zambians over many healthy generations.

In the unlikely event of this Bill being enacted, seeds that have been cultivated and whose gene pool has been carefully nurtured over generations by Zambian farmers may well find themselves “discovered”, and registered and be owned in their total diversity by Foreign Plant Breeders and their Zambian agents. This must never be allowed to happen in Zambia.

How do foreign Multinational companies and their proxy seed companies operating in Zambia have an upper hand in formulating the Law of the land rather than Zambians themselves? Why should the Law of the land serve the interests of foreigners and not Zambians?

We are reminded of what the great Zambian statesman, Mr. Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe, once said, “If we do not handle our independence correctly then the colonisers shall return as investors. Colonialism is like a chameleon, it does not go away, it only changes colours”.

The PBR Bill is a big step backwards towards recolonisation. He who owns your seeds, owns your food; and he who owns your food, owns you!

This is not the objective for which the Seed Control and Certification Institute was established, to hand over our food sovereignty to foreign interests.

We advise the SCCI to withdraw this Bill and go back to the drawing table, consult with Zambians across the spectrum and expertise, and carry out an impact assessment to save itself time and money.

A wiser and saner course is simply to forget this insane idea altogether and maintain the existing Plant Breeders Act Act No. 18 of 2007. We can not sacrifice our national sovereign birthright. We should instead create our own African Plant Breeders Verification body and operate in independence and patriotism.

Zambia is a country richly blessed by God so let us respect, cherish and hold dear the many blessings God has bestowed on us.

Don't let education blind us to our mothers’ and grandmothers’ wisdom which have been and continue to be the most expert seed plant Breeders across the globe.

We urge the Government to halt this Bill and its pandora madness. The Attorney General as the gatekeeper of our Laws must stop this legal trek to insanity forthwith and in the future prevent us from traversing a similar path.

In search of precedence we can learn from our sister country Uganda which defeated a similar Bill which was not in their national interest. 

We urge Zambians to speak as one voice in defending our national heritage for as the sun rises from the east and sets in the west, rest assured that this Bill shall kill our Zambian farmers by raising the cost of production, enslaving our food system and taking away our sovereignty.

So let us all Zambians shout loudly in unison “No to the Draft Plant Breeders Bill.”

The Rt. Revd. Dr. Musonda Trevor Selwyn Mwamba

President of the United National Independence Party (UNIP)

UNIP - The party that advocates for social justice, national development, and economic independence.