Program launched to battle counterfeit agrochemical market
Persistent allegations by the United States and others countries that Ukraine is a haven for large‑scale abuse of intellectual property rights have tended to focus on the illegal production and sale of compact discs and computer programs. However, the problem of piracy concerns a range of other goods, including agricultural chemicals.
On July 11, the Eurasia Foundation, a non‑governmental organization, and Syngenta, an agricultural‑products producer, launched a program designed to warn Ukrainian consumers about the dangers associated with purchasing counterfeit products. Such products often come in familiar‑looking packaging and carry brand names that are identical or closely similar to well‑known brands. The products themselves, however, have properties that are rarely identical to those of their genuine counterparts.
Eurasia Foundation Regional Director Richard Shepard said that the foundation wants to help other non‑governmental organizations teach consumers how intellectual property rights issues can affect peoples’ everyday lives.
Shepard said that though important, the issue of software and recording piracy doesn’t affect most Ukrainians, few of whom have much sympathy for the losses claimed by multi‑national companies.
Health concerns, however, do affect consumers directly, Shepard said.
Shepard said that informing people about intellectual property rights in an area that affects them directly could help start to chip away at the overall problem of piracy in Ukraine.
Shepard said the Foundation teamed up with Syngenta to inform consumers about the health risks posed by the use of pirated pesticides and fertilizers in the production of food. He said Syngenta agreed to fund the pilot project while the foundation contributed expertise.
“When dealing with someone who has stolen a patent or faked a product, you don’t know what is going into the food chain,” Shepard said. “At best, the faked products do nothing. At worst, they could be detrimental.”
Shepard said that a portion of this season’s potato crop has been destroyed because counterfeit products were applied. He said that when ineffective or destructive counterfeit products are used, damage is done to the reputations of brand‑name products. He also said that if people knew more about the problem, they would understand why both Western‑ and Ukrainian‑branded products are better than counterfeit products and lead to better‑informed choices.
Eurasia has made grants to non‑governmental organizations like Spilny Prostir (Common Ground), Donetsk Agricultural Development and to the Vinnytsya‑based Association of Potato and Vegetable Producers of Podillia, hoping that they will help spread the word. For the first six months of the program, the emphasis will be on intellectual property rights in the agricultural industry.
Once the pilot program is over, Shepard said the Eurasia Foundation would analyze the results and, building on the experience gained, launch a large public campaign that would involve Western and Ukrainian companies addressing intellectual property rights issues in other areas, such as information technology and pharmaceuticals. He said that it is difficult to determine who is behind much of the counterfeiting of agricultural products, but that Syngenta has filed lawsuits against firms suspected of counterfeiting its products.
Syngenta’s Kyiv‑based financial director, Yury Zastavny, said that up to 60 percent of Ukraine’s agrochemical market, worth $20 million in 2001, consists of counterfeit herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers.
He said that repackaged and contraband products make up 70 percent of this amount, while the remaining 30 percent is counterfeit products of unknown composition.
Zastavny said that the large‑scale piracy results in lost profits for farmers, lost tax revenues for the state, health problems for consumers and damage to the environment.
Meanwhile, Zastavny said that companies like Syngenta, which lose millions of dollars due to pirated agrochemicals, are becoming less inclined to reinvest profits in Ukraine as a result.
To fight the problem, agrochemical companies have begun working with the government to toughen brand‑name licensing laws, and to enforce existing intellectual property laws. He added that the Ukrainian agro‑chemical industry would also rely on the experience gained by non‑governmental organizations, the ecology and health ministries, and tax and customs authorities to combat piracy in the sector.
