What will happen to farmers who continue to avoid payment?
While the FAIR PLAY campaign aims to raise awareness of the value of continued investment in plant breeding, and to ensure farmers are aware of their legal responsibilities on farm-saved seed payments, its central objective is to combat farm-saved seed evasion. The FAIR PLAY campaign therefore includes a number of practical measures to improve compliance, including major investment in a new farmer database and simplified farm-saved seed declaration form. In future, the system will cover many more farmers than before, and will vastly improve the ability to identify and tackle non-compliance. Individual farmers would not tolerate a situation in which 10% of their legitimate income is written off every year to bad debt. Plant breeders are no different, and BSPB will take legal action against farmers who persistently fail to comply with their obligations on farm-saved seed. If proven in Court, this may result in a criminal conviction and substantial financial penalties. 17.
