Canada-Europe Trade Deal (CETA) Attacks Seeds, Farmers, Food Sovereignty

CBAN has joined the Trade Justice Network to take action. CBAN supports The National Farmers Union's new campaign to stop CETA.

Resources

• Food, Agriculture and CETA: The possible implications of a second generation, comprehensive trade agreement, A presentation by Lauren Baker, Toronto Food Policy Council, February 2011
• Trade agreement with Europe threatens Canada’s farmers, by Terry Boehm, President, National Farmers Union, Common Ground Magazine, Nov 2010.
• Video Primer on CETA from the Canadian Auto Workers

Take Action

1. You can write to The Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade: Just click here to send your letter instantly!
2. Download the petition

What is CETA?

The Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA) - the trade agreement now being negotiated between Canada and the European Commission will impact on all aspects of our lives. The proposed agreement will jeopardize the ability of governments at all levels to procure goods and services that favour in any way local businesses thereby, for example, destroying arrangements that specifically source local food. Further this agreement is calling for the inclusion of UPOV91 a draconian form of Plant Breeders Rights legislation that will effectively eliminate a farmer’s or citizen’s ability to save, reuse, exchange and sell seed. This agreement is also calling for the inclusion of enforcement procedures to uphold intellectual property rights that would allow for the judicial precautionary seizure of movable and immovable property, and the freezing of bank accounts of the alleged infringer. A farmer could see his/her home, land, equipment, and crops seized and have bank accounts frozen for being accused of using seed (including their own) that has a gene patent or other form of intellectual property attached to it. This agreement is likely to have very negative impacts on our Canadian supply management systems for dairy, poultry and egg farmers as well as the Canadian Wheat Board.

The Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA) is already being negotiated! On May 6, 2009, Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched negotiations with Europe toward a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement that will go beyond NAFTA in ways that threaten public services and local democracy in Canada. On April 19, 2010, the Trade Justice Network leaked the draft consolidated text of the agreement to start a public debate on the effect the agreement would have on a number of public policy areas in Canada.

European companies see Canada's public services, including water treatment, transportation, energy and even health care, as ripe for privatization. Europe has already requested that GMOs be exempt from the trade agreement but the rights of farmers to save seed are under direct attack from the agreement. CETA would put powerful new tools into the hands of the biotech corporations.

How will CETA affect farmers?

National Farmers Union (NFU) President, Terry Boehm, warns this agreement will further intensify Canada's farm income crisis. "The CETA would mean many changes, but none more negative than its effect to extinguish farmers' rights to save and re-use seeds," states Boehm.

From the National Farmers Union:

Agriculture is a critical economic sector that will be severely affected by the proposed trade agreement with Europe. The trade deal will concentrate even more power in the hands of corporations, at the expense of farmers and food sovereignty.

Corporations Get Powerful New Tools to Control Seeds

The trade deal would give biotech, pharmaceutical, pesticide, seed, and grain companies powerful new tools to force farmers to buy seeds at high prices, on corporate terms. It would give corporations even more power to ultimately decide who farms and how.

Eliminate the Right to Save Seed?

The trade deal would almost entirely eliminate the rights of farmers to save, reuse and sell seed

Plant varieties can be protected as intellectual property through Plant Breeders Rights as well as patents on genes. The trade deal would give rights holders an unprecedented degree of control over seeds and farming by committing Canada to adopt UPOV'91, the draconian 1991 version of The International Convention for the Protection of New Plant Varieties. The inclusion of UPOV'91 in the deal is completely unnecessary and is excessively harmful to Canadian farmers. Seed breeders would have the right to collect royalties on seed at any point in the food chain!

The draft of the trade deal also says that biotech corporations could seize the crops, equipment, and farms - and freeze the bank accounts - of farmers who are deemed patent infringers, like farmers who find unwanted contamination in their fields.

End Supply Management?

The deal would commit Canada to reducing or eliminating agricultural subsidies and other government supports to farmers over time. Supply management systems that have allowed farmers in the dairy, poultry, and egg sectors to earn a decent living are under attack. The Canadian Wheat Board (a farmer controlled grain marketer) is very likely under also threat.

Click here to download the full draft chapter on Intellectual Property.

Other Trade News

November 2009: Contamination crisis deepens as reported GM flax contamination from Canada continues to be found. Canadian flax farmers face depressed prices and their European market is closed.

October 22, 2009. Press Release: European Consumers Warned that Trade Deal with Canada could be used to Weaken GMO Regulations

July 20, 2009. Press Release: Genetically Modified Food: Canada capitulates and abandons fight with Europe at the WTO.

Canada and Europe have signed a bilateral settlement which ends Canada's dispute with the EU at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over genetically modified foods - this leaves the US and Argentina alone in their WTO dispute with Europe over GM food and requires Canada to meet with EU officials twice yearly to discuss GM issues.

The Canadian Government is trying to spin this new agreement as improving market access for GM crops in Europe, but this access already exists and the obstacle for Canadian food exports to Europe is continued consumer rejection. According to Monsanto, by March of this year, the European Commission had already approved all of the GM seeds currently used in Canada.

April 21, 2010 - Press Release, National Farmers Union: Secret Text of Canada-EU Trade Deal Released: The agreement may be the largest single issue on farm-policy horizon

See the National Farmers Union and other unions discuss the impacts on YouTube.