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BEST PRACTICES:
Community Registry in the
Philippines
In the Philippines a local farmers'
association has led the way in documenting and facilitating the sharing of the
rice varieties grown and developed within the community and the associated
knowledge. Many of these varieties have been developed through participatory
plant breeding and are further improved every season. Farmers' knowledge
concerns not only older varieties and practices, but also the innovations they
carry out in their daily work, in selecting the best material for further
propagation and improving varieties. Such knowledge is valuable, but it is not
always easy to know how to ensure that it can be shared, while at the same time
safeguarding it against misappropriation.
Throughout most of
agricultural history the idea that seeds and other propagation material are
part of the 'common heritage of mankind' has dominated farming and breeding
practices. This open access to plant genetic resources (PGR) was a central
factor in the spread and development of crops globally and was also
instrumental in laying the foundations for scientific research and the
development of modern high-yielding varieties in the last century. It was this
development that paved the way for the commercial seed industry, and with it,
the demands for private property rights to plant genetic resources. As a
response to this, efforts were made to ensure that sharing of knowledge and
seeds could still take place. However, it was in this example from the
Philippines deemed necessary to take steps to protect the knowledge and
varieties against misappropriation.
As a WTO member and signatory to the
TRIPS agreement, the Philippines are required to fulfil the obligations of
Article 27.3(b) and offer some sort of protection for plant varieties. When
plant variety protection was introduced in the Philippines in 2002 with the
Plant Variety Protection Act (PVP act), as a sui generis system in
compliance with TRIPS, many small-scale farmers engaged in participatory plant
breeding (PPB) reacted, fearing - among other things - that their innovations
could be misappropriated by breeding companies. As a collective response to the
Act, the Campagao Farmers' Production and Research Association (CFPRA) of Bilar
on the island of Bohol decided to establish a community registry, as the
community's way of asserting control over and access to seeds and propagating
material. This was done in collaboration with the Philippines-based Southeast
Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE), after a SEARICE
information and education campaign aimed at understanding the implications of
the law.
Following a series of group meetings and discussions, a community
affidavit was formulated declaring that all rice varieties maintained in the
community should be protected against the PVP Act, and that seeds of these
varieties should remain freely accessible to farmers wishing to use, sell, save
or exchange them with other farmers. The affidavit included a list of names and
characteristics of rice varieties that the community had been using and
developing since their PPB efforts started. It was supplemented by a resolution
detailing the process of how entries in the registry should be updated every
cropping season. After successful lobbing by the CFPRA, the local village
council expressed its full support of the farmers' efforts and the community
affidavit. An inventory of crop varieties was produced, a map of crop diversity
developed, and material was collected for ex situ conservation. SEARICE
project staff assisted the farmers in identifying and documenting the rice
varieties used in the community.
By registering their varieties in this
way, and continually updating the list, the farmers are protecting these
varieties from misappropriation by commercial actors. For plant variety
protection to be granted, the applicant must demonstrate that the variety in
question is new. Varieties already registered in this way cannot be claimed as
new inventions by others. Continual updating is therefore essential.
A
special feature of the community registry project is the collaboration with the
Central Visayas State College of Agriculture, Forestry and Technology, which
provided back-up storage and documentation of the farmers' rice varieties,
including those in the community registry. The College also provides free
access for farmers to the materials stored in its seed bank and disseminates
information on the characteristics of these materials through rice
catalogues.
In the future, the CFPRA will work to increase the awareness
surrounding the community registry and farmers' seeds at the levels of village,
municipality and province. They also plan on lobbying the municipality for
recognition of the CFPRA Community Registry, and work towards getting Farmers'
Rights recognized at the provincial and national level.
The major
achievement of the CFPRA project is that the material and the documented
knowledge related to it remain in the public domain and can be widely shared in
the spirit of 'common heritage'; while at the same time there are guarantees to
protect against misappropriation. Among the main factors explaining the success
we find the farmer-scientist collaboration, including the facilities of a gene
bank, and the support of an experienced NGO like SEARICE. The most important
lesson is probably that farmers do not need to fear sharing their seeds and
knowledge if they take appropriate steps and register their varieties and
associated information.
(This text is based on information from an
article by Cisenio Salces and SEARICE (CBDC Bohol, Philippines) in a
publication by the Community Biodiversity and Conservation Programme, 2006:
89-92, and the introduction by Paul Pedro I. Borja to the chapter Community
Driven Policy Advocacy in the same publication, p 85)
Pages in this sub-section:
SUCCESS STORIES ON TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE
RELATED TO AGRO-BIODIVERSITY
Cataloguing potatoes and traditional knowledge in
Peru
In situ
conservation in Switzerland
Community registry in the Philippines
Rediscovering traditional knowledge
in Norway |
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