Islamabad, Pakistan
July 2, 2015

Source: USDA/FAS GAIN report PK 1528

Report Highlights:
The Senate Agriculture Committee passed the amendments to Pakistan’s 1976 Seed Act. The full Senate is expected to vote in a few months when it reconvenes. The amendments focus primarily on addressing unregulated participation in the seed industry.

Disclaimer: This summary is based on a cursory review of the subject announcement and, therefore, should not under any circumstances be viewed as a definitive interpretation of the regulation or policy in question, or of its implications for U.S. agricultural trade interests. For more information, please contact the Office of Agricultural Affairs in Islamabad at agislamabad@fas.usda.gov

Senate Agriculture Committee Approves Amendments to 1976 Seed Act

On June 11, 2015, the Senate’s agriculture committee approved the amendments to the 1976 Seed Act. The full Senate is expected to vote when it reconvenes again in a few months. These amendments were drafted and proposed a number of years ago and have made considerable progress in the legislature over the nine months. This is one of three key pieces of seed regulation that the Government of Pakistan is reviewing. The others are the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act which would establish intellectual property protection and the Biosafety Act which would re-assert the role of the federal government in regulating the biotechnology sector following the devolution of federal powers to the provinces in 2010.

Of the three pending regulations, this says the least about new technology and is primarily focused on eliminating unregulated participation in the seed industry. Key provisions include: 

• The amendments would bring the private sector under the purview of the Seed Act. Currently, the Act makes little mention of the private sector, leaving private companies, which have formed under other regulatory statutes (the 1984 companies act for example), largely unregulated.
• Anyone seeking to participate in the seed industry would have to have a seed processing plant or work as a registered seed dealer.
• Selling seed without proper registration and selling misbranded seed would be subject to jail time or a fine.
• Biotech seeds may not contain the “terminator gene,” a gene that prohibits the replanting of a crop, but is not deployed in commercial crop crops.
• Biotech seed must have approval from the National Biosafety Committee stating that the seeds

Website: http://www.fas.usda.gov/

Published: July 6, 2015