Linking Small-Scale Farmers to Global Markets

Justin van Fleet is a NetAid Program Manager. A native of Appalachia, Justin served as a representative on a UN Committee for Intellectual Property Rights. When not leading workshops in South Africa and trying to learn Afrikaans, he creates curriculum for young poverty-fighters in the U.S.

For the past several years, I have been following a human rights issue that often goes unmentioned: the rights of indigenous communities over their knowledge and resources.  In particular, I am interested in how these rights are protected in light of the rules and regulations of international trade.

This spring, I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa and join a team of researchers conducting a project aimed at linking small-scale farmers to international markets using intellectual property rights.  It’s actually not near as complicated as it sounds.  This blog shares my experiences working on this development project.

Chew on this – the background on biopiracy

For centuries, the Kung Bushmen of South Africa and Botswana chewed the stem of the hoodia cactus before setting off on hunting trips. The stem suppressed their appetite and allowed them to hunt animals for days without going hungry. The Bushmen passed on this knowledge from generation to generation.

Nowadays, you can walk into any local supermarket or drug store and buy hoodia pills. You won't see it in its natural form, but it is there, marketed as a natural weight loss supplement. However, while the knowledge of the Kung Bushmen has spread to the rest of the world, they have largely been left out of the wealth it has generated.

The story of the hoodia cactus is not uncommon. While many countries like South Africa and Botswana are economically poor, they are resource rich.  Full of biodiversity, these developing countries are host to indigenous resources and traditional knowledge about how to use these resources.  Traditional knowledge tends to be oral in nature and passed down from generation to generation. Unlike Western knowledge, it is seen as communal – owned and shared by all people. But this knowledge has recently been co-opted by people seeking to gain profits, in what is called biopiracy.

But what if traditional knowledge holders in developing countries could protect their knowledge and resources?  What if they could use their wisdom to promote their own development and to fight poverty in their communities?  This is the question I set out to answer as part of a research team in South Africa. The blog you are reading will take you on that journey, as we work with small-scale farmers to see how they can protect their resources and knowledge and promote local development.

Intellectual Property Rights: Not as Complex as They Sound

My role in the research project was to develop capacity-building workshops for small-scale farmers. What's that mean?  It means teaching people in local communities how to protect traditional knowledge and indigenous resources, and giving them the tools to look out for themselves, rather than relying on other people to help them out.  

Why is this necessary? One way that governments protect knowledge is through intellectual property rights. That may sound like a lot to swallow, but you already know a lot about this subject. Intellectual property rights are things like copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets that protect innovators in the marketplace. Ever see a bootleg DVD or download a song you didn't buy? Well, that all has to do with the business of intellectual property rights.  

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has an agreement stating that all member countries (most of the world!) have to protect intellectual property rights.  While this may sound like a great idea, it’s not so easy to put into practice. That’s because in people in poor countries who have a great deal of local knowledge rarely know how to protect it. What’s more, they aren’t even aware that they need to protect such knowledge…until it’s too late. That’s where this project comes into play.

Our Approach: Meet Frik and Vusi

Learning is more than listening to a lecture - it's about learning to think about problems in a critical way. Real learning encourages you to challenge ideas and apply them to your life. My goal was to promote real learning that would benefit the everyday lives of South African farmers. And although I went to "teach" farmers, I had a lot to learn myself. 

We used a cartoon character, Frik, to help teach the farmers about intellectual property rights.  In the training manual we developed, Frik, along with his sidekick Vusi, explores his values, goals and the benefits associated with protecting his knowledge.

The training had the following steps:

• Discus what communities already know about intellectual property - after all, they come in contact with trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets every day!
• Map out an indigenous resource in a community and discuss its unique features, importance, uses, and cultivation.
• Define the values and goals of the community
• Select potential intellectual property options that promote these values and goals

Plan creatively how each option could work for the community.

Entry 1. April 21, 2006
The Itinerary

I'm starting the journey from the ScientificRoets office (www.scientificroets.com) in Kokstad, South Africa.  My partner will be Dr. Merida Roets, a South African rural development and agricultural expert. 

Our journey starts tomorrow at noon, when we leave Kokstad bound for Bloemfontein on the other side of Lesotho. The University here will be the site of our first training with the Nguni Cattle Hide Farmers.

The Nguni cattle are a central part of Zulu culture in South Africa, tied to everything from family structure and marriage to food security and war. When they are living, cattle are named for what they look like, or for how they are used. One was named "flies on milk" because of the black spots on its mostly white coat. Today, hides are produced commercially and by small-scale farmers, used mainly to decorate people's homes.

In meeting with the Nguni farmers, We'll be examining whether using a label that indicates where the cattle come from can set their hides apart in the marketplace. We'll also be looking at other intellectual property options that may apply.

From Bloemfontein, we'll leave Friday evening for a 10 hour journey to Nieuwoudville for our second workshop, which will take place the next morning at 9:30 am! We will drive half-way there, rest for a few hours, and then wake up at 3 am to finish the journey. This workshop will focus on small-scale producers of Rooibos tea, a tea native to South Africa which is now marketed by commercial producers worldwide. Due to the historical and cultural cultivation of Rooibos in South Africa, the farmers we are meeting believe that only their tea is genuine Rooibos; the others are just imitations of poor quality.

We'll be using Frik and Vusi (hyperlink) to help us explore how intellectual property rights may apply to the situation of these Rooibos farmers. This workshop will be conducted in Afrikaans, which will take a bit of extra preparation on our part. I don't speak a bit of Afrikaans, but luckily, I'll have Merida to help translate.

After the workshop, we'll hit the road again, this time at a more casual pace as we drive through South Africa's Northern Cape.  After some planning meetings and adjustments in the materials, we’ll be off for our last workshop with Honeybush tea farmers.  

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