ABSTRACT
In the last two decades, some Javanese rice farmers have learned to be plant breeders with the help of Farmer Field Schools for Participatory Plant Breeding. However, they have experienced problems with seed and intellectual property laws primarily focused on the strengthening of the seed industry and compliance with development plans. A number of farmers have been prosecuted for experimenting with seeds, prompting a partly successful challenge to relevant provisions in Indonesia’s Constitutional Court. Subsequent legislative changes have restored some farmers’ rights, but also brought new reporting requirements and limitations. Using James Scott’s concept of “transformative state simplifications,” this article shows that legal challenges to regulations are just one strategy of self-help. The political reform process and possibility for constitutional challenges have opened up space for debates about how farmers can benefit from laws that seek to regulate their cultivars. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other developments are likely to intensify discussions about what precisely various laws mean by their encouragement of “small farmer varieties,” “food sovereignty,” and a “sustainable agricultural cultivation system.”
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the journal editor and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Christoph Antons is a professor of law at the University of Newcastle, Australia; a senior fellow at the Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, Germany; an affiliated research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Germany; and a visiting professor of law at the University of Technology MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia. His latest book publication is Intellectual Property, Cultural Property and Intangible Cultural Heritage (Routledge 2018, co-edited with William Logan).
Yunita T. Winarto is a professor of anthropology at Universitas Indonesia and a member of the Cultural Commission of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences. Her most recent book publication is Meretas Batas Ilmu: Perjalanan Intelektual Guru Besar Sosial-Humaniora (Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia 2019, co-edited with S.R. Hidayat and M. Budianta).
Adlinanur F. Prihandiani is a research assistant on an Australian Research Council-funded project called “Food security and the Governance of Local Knowledge in India and Indonesia.” She is a co-author, along with Christoph Antons, Yunita T. Winarto and Sinta Uli, of “Farmers as Researchers: Government Regulation of Farmers’ Local Knowledge in Indonesia” in M. Blakeney and K. H. M. Siddique (eds.), Local Knowledge, Intellectual Property and Agricultural Innovation (Springer, 2020).
Notes
12 See Article 65 WTO TRIPS Agreement.
17 McKeon Citation2015, 37. On the multinational concentration in the seed trade see also Utomo Citation2013, 21. Monsanto was bought by Bayer AG in September 2016 for US$ sixty-six billion.
18 Article 27.3.b. WTO TRIPS Agreement.
25 For a summary of experiences in Africa, see Arnold Citation2017, 739–760.
29 De Sousa Santos et al. Citation2007, xxxi, xxxvii–xxxviii.
36 Winarto Citation2004, 15. On the broad range of terms for the knowledge in question in the anthropological and ecological literature see, for example, Berkes Citation1999, 5–8; Ellen et al. Citation2000, 2–6. The discussion and problems with terminology helps to explain why Scott Citation1998, 309–341, prefers to introduce the Greek term metis for the knowledge in question.
40 For the example of the much promoted intellectual property right of the geographical indication, see Antons Citation2017b.
41 Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia Nomor 2 Tahun 1961 Tentang Pengeluaran dan Pemasukan Tanaman dan Bibit Tanaman.
44 Explanatory note to the preamble of Law No. 12 of 1992 on the Plant Cultivation System.
45 CF. Peraturan Menteri Pertanian Republik Indonesia Nomor 61/Permentan/OT.140/10/2011 Tentang Pengujian, Penilaian, Pelepasan dan Penarikan Varietas [Regulation No. 61/Permentan/OT.140/10/2011 Regarding the Trial, Evaluation, Release and Collection of Varieties].
46 Undang Undang No. 29 Tahun 2000 Tentang Perlindungan Varietas Tanaman.
47 Milik masyarakat can also be translated as “public ownership.” See Kanniah and Antons Citation2012,16.
48 Explanatory note to Article 7(1).
49 Explanatory note to Article 7(2).
50 See also Antons Citation2017a, 256–257. A 2011 regulation on the release process for seeds overlapped with the 2000 intellectual property law. It required released varieties to be “distinct, uniform, and stable,” requirements that are difficult to fulfil for farmers’ varieties. This regulation also required a local variety to be a “superior variety” and to have been planted for five harvests in the case of annual crops and for more than five years in the case of seasonal crops. See Articles 13 and 17 Ministerial Regulation No. 61 of 2011.
56 Other NGOs involved in the constitutional challenge were the Farmer Initiative for Ecological Livelihoods and Democracy (FIELD), the Alliance of Indonesian Farmers (Aliansi Petani Indonesia), the Sadajiwa Village Cultivation Foundation (Yayasan Bina Desa Sadajiwa), the People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty (Koalisi Rakyat Untuk Kedaulatan Pangan), the Indonesian Farmers’ Society for Integrated Pest Control (Ikatan Petani Pengendalian Hama Terpadu Indonesia), the Alliance of Oil Palm Farmers (Ikatan Petani Kelapa Sawit), the Coconut Watch Association (Perkumpulan Sawit Watch), the Union of Indonesian Farmers (Serikat Petani Indonesia), and the Alliance for the Agrarian Reform Movement (Aliansi Gerakan Reformasi Agraria). Individual farmers came from the Kediri and Indramayu districts in East and West Java, respectively.
57 Reference was made to Articles 28A, 28C, 28D(1), 28I(2) and (3), and 28G(1) of Chapter X.
58 Mahkamah Konstitusi Citation2013, 123–129. The Court confirmed the exemption of small farmers a few years later in a decision concerning plantation crops under Law No. 39 of 2014 Regarding Plantations. See Mahkamah Konstitusi Citation2016a, Citation2016b.
60 Two major types of rice in Indonesia were grown; “ … javanica rice referred in Indonesia as bulu (with a sub-class known as gundil), and indica rice known in Indonesia as cereh (tjereh).” See Fox Citation1991, 64. According to Fox, javanica varieties were planted in volcanic soils and indica varieties in other soil formations.
61 In 1905 in Bogor, a rice breeding program was initiated by Dutch and Indonesian scientists to develop improved varieties. See Fox Citation1991, 64.
62 See Fox (Citation1991) for Phase I and II of the Indonesian Rice Intensification Program.
66 The PEDIGREA program was supposed to conserve a wide range of rice genetics in Southeast Asian countries by introducing participatory plant breeding knowledge and skills to farmers through the Farmer Field Schools for Participatory Plant Breeding. See Winarto Citation2011.
71 See farmer-plant-breeders’ and agricultural officials’ viewpoints in the documentary film, Bisa Dèwèk, directed by Ariefiansyah and released in 2007.
74 The community register never materialized since all new cultivars had to be processed via the central PVP office.
76 On the criminalization of farmers see Utomo Citation2013, 61–66.
77 Undang-Undang Nomor 12 Tahun 1992 Tentang Sistem Budidaya Tanaman; see also Antons et al. Citation2020, 122–123.
79 Law No. 20 of 2019, Article 29 (2).
81 The Director initiated with her own funds the purchase of three freezers and three sealers to be distributed to three farmer-plant-breeders, one of whom was Dar. See Ansori Citation2011, 288.
83 AMARTA was founded in Boyolali in 2014 by APORI (Asosiasi Petani Organik Boyolali) and facilitated by API (Aliansi Petani Indonesia).
85 The terms are merged in Article 29.2, however, which speaks of “small farmer varieties resulting from plant breeding.”
87 See Article 16 of Government Regulation No. 13 of 2004 and the discussion above.
88 Article 64.4 of Ministry of Agriculture Regulation No. 38 of 2019 Regarding the Release of Plant Varieties.
89 See the explanatory note to Article 27.2: “What is meant by ‘small farmers’ are farmers who work every day in the agricultural sector with yields that are only sufficient to meet the needs of daily life.”
93 On the differences between these two concepts see McKeon Citation2015, 73–81.
Additional information
Funding
This research was supported under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (project number DP170100747).
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4851-5172
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