On 25 May 2021, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari signed its Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Bill into law. The Bill was passed by the House of Representatives on 17 December 2020 and the Senate on 3 March 2021. The three stated objectives of the law are to (a) promote increased staple crop productivity for smallholder farmers in Nigeria and encourage investment in plant breeding and crop variety development; (b) promote increased mutual accountability in the seed sector; (c) protect new varieties of plants. The law establishes a Plant Variety Registry to be domiciled within the National Agriculture Seed Council (NASC). Regulations are being finalised to give effect to the Act.
The NASC promoted the introduction of the law with the support of partners such as the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable (NASSBER), the Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa (PIATA), Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Rockefeller Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The NASC posits that the plant variety protection system will incentivise national and multinational agribusiness investments and aid the development of Nigeria’s agriculture value chain. It projects that Nigeria will generate about $2 billion in revenue from seed export within the first five years.
Conversely, actors such as the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) reject the PVP law. It asserts that the law is styled on the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) which favours commercial plant breeders to the disadvantage of smallholder farmers. In a petition to the Secretary-General of UPOV dated 23 August 2021, a coalition of 101 farmers, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), researchers, youth and women groups denounced the adoption of PVP law. They demand that Nigeria withdraws the law and adopt a sui generis law that is suited to its agriculture system.
The coalition argues that the provisions of Section 43(2) of the PVP law contravene the Constitution of Nigeria, accordingly its validity has been challenged in court by the Registered Trustees of HOMEF with support from over 50 organisations. Filed at the Federal High Court Abuja, the lawsuit sues the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Attorney General of the Federation, and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. It challenges the undemocratic process of law-making and the inconsistency of the UPOV-based law with the Nigerian constitution. The lawsuit prays for an order of perpetual injunction restraining the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development by themselves, their agents, servants, workmen or otherwise whatsoever from carrying out any activity or further activity pursuant to section 43(2) of the PVP law. It seeks a declaration that section 43(2) of the PVP law is illegal, invalid, null and void and contrary to Sections 6 and 36 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria – as amended in 2011.
The coalition makes the following six demands:
- Nigeria should not accede to UPOV and its 1991 Act. Instead, Nigeria should conduct a thorough, objective and realistic multidisciplinary assessment of the local situation which takes into account the kind of seed supply system in place, the extent to which farmers freely save, exchange and sell seed/propagating material, the type of domestic seed industry and the existence of public breeding, the current domestic breeding capacity, international obligations applicable (CBD, Nagoya Protocol, ITPGRFA, human rights, etc.), and relevant national objectives and policies (e.g., on nutrition, food security, poverty reduction, agriculture). Nigeria doesn’t have a bilateral trade investment agreement that expressly mandates it to accede to the UPOV 1991 Convention.
- The Plant Variety Protection Act, 2021 should be recalled and replaced with a sui generis law based on the African Model which addresses the peculiar challenges in Agriculture in an all-inclusive and mutually benefiting way. The Nigerian government should take into account international obligations to which it is a party to such as the CBD and the ITPGRFA including other measures required to support the implementation of these.
- Smallholder farmers are the backbone of Agriculture in the country and thus should be adequately supported in terms of favourable policies; infrastructure; extension service; credit schemes; access to land etc. for improved productivity.
- We demand support for farmer-managed systems (FMSS), farmers’ rights and our human rights.
- We demand a democratisation of our food system, promotion of local solutions and sovereignty for our smallholder farmers.
- The government should ensure support and autonomy of public breeding research institutions as these breed varieties for farmers and have an obligation to the public.
