Cultivating Controversy: Organic Seed Production and Policies in Canada

Catherine Phillips

Seed production and privatisation in Canada has been exposed as a public issue of growing concern, particularly during this year’s Supreme Court ruling on the Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser and the ongoing court battle of the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate against Aventis, as well as Canada’s endorsement of the International Seed Treaty and the seed industry-led seed sector review.

This presentation will begin by discussing how these events (among others), and their (potential) policy results, will affect organic seed production. In particular, seed production by small-scale producers in Canada will be addressed. Questions this presentation will address include: how national policies support and/or destabilise established practices; how definitions of organic production influence small-scale seed production; and how these issues link more broadly to justice demands for food sovereignty and farmer’s rights.

I will argue that Canadian policy initiatives and legal rulings have expanded the control of transnational corporations of our food system by further commodification, privatisation and technologisation of seeds. The implications are far-reaching, but for small-scale organic farmers the result is the perpetuation and advancement of an already unjust system that challenges not only their livelihoods, but their ways of living.

What possibilities are there for challenge by producers and consumers of these movements within the food system? This final question will comprise the conclusion of the presentation in an effort to link activism for rights and justice with policy formation.



Source
Presented at the Social Research in Organic Agriculture Symposium. Guelph, Ontario. January 2005


Author Location and Affiliation
Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, cphil@yorku.ca


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