COTONOU, (Mar. 5) IPS - Entering the global economy, some African
researchers
say, calls for trade-offs, and Francophone nations recently had no
trouble
trading small farmers' rights to store and exchange seed.
Francophone members of the African Organization of Intellectual
Property
(OAPI) put their signatures to the 1991 Union for the Protection of New
Varieties of Plants Convention (UPOV 91) in the Central African capital
of
Bangui.
Inventors of new crops now have their discoveries protected in the
OAPI
countries as per the terms of UPOV 91.
Adopted in Paris in 1961, this Convention has been amended several
times,
but most members follow its 1978 Convention which is widely interpreted
by
governments to allow farmers to save and exchange seed.
But UPOV's 1991 Convention assumes that farmers cannot save seed
unless
governments permit specific exceptions, and up until the signing last
week by
the OAPI countries, only 11 developed countries had adopted the 1991
Convention.
The Francophone members of the OAPI are Benin, Burkina Faso,
Cameroon,
Central Africa Republic, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Cote
d'Ivoire,
Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Togo.
While the Canadian-based International Rural Advancement Foundation
(RAFI)
believes that African countries may have been pushed too quickly into
the arms
of a western-dominated intellectual property cartel, Francois Adande of
Benin
says Africa must create "trust" that it can protect intellectual
property
rights.
Adande, head of judicial and trademark services at Benin's National
Center
of Industrial Property (CENAPI), believes that the UPOV Convention is
important
in so far as it protects inventions coming from Western countries that
are much
more able and equipped in research, especially in genetic engineering.
"Globalization is scaring the whole world. Those who have something
are
scared. Infringements are occurring more and more, and if Western
inventions
are not protected, they will be investing in research at a loss,"
Adande says.
Africa, he continues, can only gain by creating trust in its ability
to
protect acquired crops.
"But if one does not create that trust, there will not be any kind
of
technological transfer, since each would guard their own secret and our
situation would improve much more slowly."
Other Francophone African experts also are not so alarmed by RAFI's
concern
that the more than 20 million small farmers in the Francophone African
nations
would have no right to store and exchange seeds, because of their
governments'
signing UPOV 91.
The 1991 Convention, argues Badiou Ouattara, head of a crop research
centre
in Burkina Faso, "has nothing to do with seed supply for farmers.
"It's like a musician that writes music. The whole world can buy a
tape, but
it is registered internationally under the composer's name," Ouattara
continues.
Hien Mathieu, head of the Intellectual Property Services in the
Ministry of
Commerce, Industry, and Crafts of Burkina Faso, oh the other hand, says
that
while African nations must be cautious in negotiations on intellectual
property
rights, globalization requires trade offs.
"If after investment-financed research someone finds varieties of
millet or
corn (suitable) for the Sahel, they must be compensated for their
discovery,"
Hien says.
"Our countries must make the necessary arrangements and adjustments,
because
globalization is here. We cannot afford to marginalise ourselves," Hien
adds.
"We need a rational policy on research. If the Europeans come to do
research, you have to be a partner to them so they do not take and
protect
everything over there."
Hien adds that the protection, in this case UPOV 91, does not mean
that no
one else can use "your product", but that whoever has developed a crop
can use
it or permit others to use it.
Bassane Jean Toe in Burkina Faso's Ministry of Agriculture says that
adding
the Francophone African nation's signatures to UPOV 91 is like adding a
"voice
of reason."
"It's a necessity. African nations have ample knowledge of UPOV, so
they
have nothing to worry about," Toe says.
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