Peasant farmers against Plant Breeders Bill

The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), has reiterated its opposition to the passage of the Plant Breeders Bill (PBB) at its current form.

The members said clause 23 of the PBB does not represent the sovereign interest of the country.

Mr Charles Nyaaba, Programmes Officer of PFAG, who stated this at a regional forum in Bolgatanga on Wednesday on access to health care by small scale farmers using the national health insurance, said the clause 23 of the PBB would make farmers worse off.

The forum, which was sponsored by STAR – Ghana, a multi donor pooled funding agency, brought together health service providers and farmers from Northern, Upper East, and Upper West Regions to deliberate on ways to ensure effective health care delivery in rural areas for the benefit of farmers.

This followed a research by PFAG at some districts in the three regions, which revealed that majority of small scale farmers especially those in the remote areas encounter challenges in accessing health care due to bad attitudes of health workers, ignorance about the operations of the national health insurance amongst others.

The clause 23 of the PBB states: "A plant breeder’s right shall be independent of any measure taken by the Republic to regulate within Ghana the production, certification and marketing of material of a variety or the importation or exportation of the material.”

Mr Nyaaba said this implied that “Trans National Corporations can limit what Ghana's government can do, while Ghana's government will lose power to limit what corporations can do within Ghana”.

He said: "If Ghana passes the PBB, it gives away control of its agriculture, as well as control of its own food supply because our farmers will continue to depend on foreigners for seeds.”

He appealed to Parliament to reconsider the PBB to ensure that it address the concerns of farmers.

This week, the Speaker of Parliament referred the PBB to the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament for further consultation because of the concerns raised about it by some interest groups.

Mr Nyaaba also spoke about the access to health project of PFAG saying farmers must be in good health to produce enough for the country hence and called for measures to improve health care delivery to small scale farmers who lived in rural areas.

Mr Abdul Ramani, President of PFAG appealed to the government to ensure that “Snake serum is made available and easily accessible in rural communities since the commonest problem among farmers is snake bite that sometimes leads to avoidable death”.

Mr Ramani also said: “No country can succeed in developing its agricultural without subsidies, therefore government should create a way for small scale women and men farmers to access fertiliser subsidies in the coming season.”

Mr Peter Boateng, Deputy Director in-charge of Administration of the Upper East Regional Health Directorate gave the assurance that efforts are being made to construct more health infrastructure especially CHPS Compounds to make health care accessible to all.

Mr Boateng said the Regional Health Directorate had received quantities of vaccines for snake and dog bites and advised farmers to report to the hospitals with such cases for early treatment.