Booker, Warren, Welch Introduce Bill to Stop Big Ag from Rigging the Seed Market Against Farmers

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT) introduced the Fair Seeds for Farmers Act to stop Big Agriculture from rigging the patent system against family farmers - and to bring down grocery prices for everyone else.

A seed used to belong to the farmer who planted it. Now, just four corporations control more than 75 percent of the U.S. corn and soybean seed markets, and they've built that dominance by weaponizing patent law against the very people who feed the country. Congress never intended this. Lawmakers deliberately built a balance into seed law, one that let companies profit from innovation while protecting farmers' and the public's basic right to save, study, and share seeds. Dominant seed companies blew past that balance by reaching for utility patents: a far more aggressive form of protection, with none of the traditional carve-outs for seed saving, research, or experimentation.

The consequences are stark. Smaller seed companies trying to develop competing products get boxed out entirely, forced into restrictive licensing deals just to survive. Farmers get locked into exploitative contracts that strip away a right they have exercised for thousands of years: saving seed from one harvest to plant the next. Instead, they're forced back to the same corporations, year after year. Growers deserve autonomy to research, breed or experiment with seeds.

The Fair Seeds for Farmers Act puts a stop to it, on two fronts:

• Restores the right protections for seeds. The bill makes clear that seeds and plants can only be protected under the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) and the Plant Patent Act (PPA) - the two laws Congress actually built for this purpose, both of which safeguard farmers' and researchers' rights. This applies to pending and future patents, leaving existing patents untouched.
• Puts control back in farmers' hands. The bill bars corporate seed giants from using contracts to strip farmers of their right to save seed between growing seasons, or to research, breed, experiment with, or propagate the seeds and plants they've purchased.

If signed into law, the Fair Seeds for Farmers Act would let farmers save seed the way they always have - lowering their costs, easing the price of groceries for every American family, and increasing fair competition for small seed companies.

"When a handful of powerful corporations dominate the seed market, they can dictate which seeds get planted and the amount of independence growers have over the crops they produce, and the costs ultimately show up in the prices families pay at the grocery store," said Senator Booker. "This legislation gives farmers the freedom to save seeds, restores competition to the marketplace, and helps lower one of the biggest costs of producing the food we all rely on."

"For decades, Big Ag has ripped off farmers and jacked up food prices for families," said Senator Warren. "My bill will break these companies' stranglehold on seeds to lower grocery bills for Americans and give our farmers more freedom over their crops."

"Rapid consolidation in the seed industry has had a direct and brutal impact on farms in Vermont and across the country. Big corporations' abuse of the patent system is making farmers pay more to plant, and those higher costs are felt throughout the entire food system-the end result is families paying more at the grocery store," said Senator Welch. "We're taking on corporate power in the seed industry to keep family farms in business and lower costs for hardworking Americans."

The Fair Seeds for Farmers Act is endorsed by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Farm Action Fund, American Economic Liberties Project, Open Markets Institute, RAFI-USA, National Family Farm Coalition, Environmental Working Group, Northeast Organic Farming Association Massachusetts, and Organic Seed Alliance.

U.S. Representatives Jim McGovern (D-MA-02) and Greg Casar (D-TX-35) introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives last week.

To read the full text of the bill, click here.