No, farmers aren’t losing the right to save seed — here’s what’s really changing under proposed Plant Breeders’ Rights amendments.
Canada’s seed industry has just days left to make its voice heard — the deadline to comment on proposed amendments to the Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) Regulations passed this past Saturday, Oct. 18, at midnight Eastern time. But it’s a moment that could shape how the country is perceived as a destination for agricultural innovation for years to come.
The proposed changes, introduced by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and supported by the seed sector, aim to modernize Canada’s seed framework, strengthen confidence for investors and breeders, and ensure that farmers continue to have access to the newest and best genetics.
Far from restricting farmers’ rights, the amendments clarify how innovation is shared, used, and rewarded — creating a transparent system that supports both the people developing new varieties and those putting them in the ground.
The proposed amendments to the PBR Regulations aim to modernize and strengthen the system by:
- Narrowing the scope of the farmers’ privilege exemption, better aligning Canada with international standards under UPOV.
- Extending the duration of protection for certain crop kinds, including potatoes, asparagus, and woody plants.
- Reducing administrative burdens through streamlined, flexible application processes — including lower filing fees for online applications.
Collectively, these updates are designed to bring Canada’s framework in line with the international norm, while making it easier and more worthwhile for breeders to register new varieties here.
Spin, Spin, Spin
Still, the conversation has become muddied in recent days, following an Oct. 9 news conference led by NDP agriculture critic Gord Johns and Bloc Québécois ag critic Yves Perron, joined by National Farmers Union (NFU) and SeedChange representatives. The event warned that the regulatory changes would “take away farmers’ rights” to save seed — a message that has circulated widely online.
Johns recently submitted a petition to Parliament that he said is signed by 6,000 Canadians, calling on the government to cancel the proposed amendments.
Seed industry leaders note that critics oversimplify the issue. The farmer’s privilege remains protected under the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act, and nothing in the proposed regulatory update changes that. CFIA simply wants to update the PBR rules so that the farmers’ privilege — which lets farmers save and reuse seed — no longer applies to crops like fruits, vegetables, ornamentals, plants grown from cuttings, and hybrids.
This change would make Canada’s system stronger and more consistent with how other countries handle these kinds of plant varieties, the proposal notes, adding that an open-ended farmers’ privilege exemption is inappropriate for crop kinds such as fruits, vegetables, and ornamental varieties, which are often asexually reproduced, and where it is no longer a customary practice for producers to save and reuse seed.
Setting the Record Straight
Lauren Comin, policy director for Seeds Canada, points out that the narrative being pushed publicly doesn’t reflect the realities of modern agriculture.
“These petitions pull at the heartstrings. When someone comes to your door and tells you that farmers’ rights are being taken away, of course that sounds terrible. Who wouldn’t sign a petition after hearing that?,” she says.
“There’s this romanticized idea of the farmer in overalls, pulling a plow with a horse and two cows,” she says. “But that’s not what agriculture looks like today. It’s incredibly innovative, technology-driven, and globally competitive. We need policy frameworks that reflect that reality.”
Why the Amendments Matter
At its core, the CFIA’s proposal is about clarity and consistency. It modernizes how Canada handles new fruit, vegetable, ornamental, and hybrid varieties, aligning domestic policy with global standards and sending a clear signal to international plant breeders that Canada is a fair, transparent place to invest.
“Plant breeders’ rights and other IP protections are about creating opportunities for access to innovation,” Comin says. “If companies didn’t want their innovations accessed, they wouldn’t release them. They use PBR because they want farmers to use their genetics — and this system creates the framework to make that possible.”
Comin adds that the goal is balance, not restriction. “This whole narrative about privatizing seed and taking access away is just not what’s happening here,” she says. “It’s about putting guidelines around that balance and making sure both innovators and farmers benefit.”
One of the proposed amendments for potatoes, asparagus and woody plants — to increase PBR protection to 25 years — has been widely praised by those involved in the horticulture sector. It was previously applied to fruit in 2015, and has since received rave reviews.
Erin Wallich, in her role as an intellectual property manager for British Columbia’s Summerland Varieties Corporation (SVC), helps to safeguard and commercialize sweet cherry varieties. SVC plans to introduce new sweet cherry varieties under UPOV 91, capitalizing on the amendments to Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights Act that made in 2015, which is seen as a boon to the B.C. cherry industry.
“The extension of rights to 25 years under UPOV 91 greatly benefits sweet cherry breeders and growers, considering that it takes more than 30 years to develop, evaluate and commercialize new cherry varieties,” Wallich told Seed World Canada in 2023.
While some advocacy groups frame the amendments as a loss for farmers, industry experts see them as a necessary step to maintain Canada’s competitiveness. Without a framework that rewards breeders and protects innovation, investment will simply move elsewhere.
“If we let the sentiment spread that intellectual property protection is a threat,” Comin cautions, “we risk relegating Canadian agriculture to being perpetually stuck in the present year. The world will innovate around us.”
For Comin and others, the issue isn’t about bureaucracy — it’s about ensuring that Canadian farmers have continued access to cutting-edge genetics.
