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Seeds as intellectual property: issues
and controversy
The information age is set to revolutionise “the core human
idea of property” (Pollack 1999). It all began with software.
As software license agreements boldly proclaim, software
products are merely licensed, not sold.
Software licensing ideas are becoming increasingly popular
with other objects as well. Even seeds are now sold with a
label, licensed. Seed companies want farmers to buy seeds
afresh every time they sow a particular variety of seeds. They
accuse farmers of seed piracy if the farmers try to save seeds
from their harvest and plant them the next year. While the
seed companies claim intellectual property rights on their
lines of seeds, farmers from all over the globe demand their
own property rights in view of their traditional contribution
to plant genetic resources. Naturally, “seeds as intellectual
property” has become a highly controversial issue.
Seeds were first recognised as intellectual property in the
early 1960s when plant breeders were allowed to patent their
seeds. Under the existing legal structure in the United
States, utility patents govern the use of genetically
engineered seeds. Utility patents grant inventors the right to
exclude others from producing or using their discoveries or
inventions for a limited period of time. Utility patents
usually last a term of 20 years from the date of application.
The Plant Variety Protection (PVP), on the other hand,
protects improved, inbred seed lines (“Protecting Intellectual
Property”). To qualify for the PVP, the seed varieties have to
be “novel, uniform, and stable in propagation.” The PVP( Plant
variety protection) lasts a period of 18 years after the
certificate is issued. Though the PVP empowers its owner to
control the distribution of the seeds and transplants through
legal means, it also grants limited rights to farmers. A
farmer can save a limited amount of seeds for use on his farm
without olating the PVP. He can also sell a portion of such
saved seeds to his farmer neighbours, provided he does not do
so at a commercial level (“Plant Variety Protection”).
However, the “Plant Variety Protection Act,” as amended in
1994, now prohibits the sale or transfer of any PVP-protected
variety introduced since April 4, 1994 (“Planting Bin-run Seed
is Risky, Economically, Legally”).
In spite of the obvious legal restrictions, some farmers save
seeds of all kinds and sell them to other farmers. Though seed
companies claim that the certified seeds are pure, free of
seed-borne diseases, void of cracks and other mechanical
damage, and guarantee very high yields, illegal “brown
bagging” continues unabated simply because the seed companies
do not have effective means to enforce their intellectual
property rights. The seed companies have traditionally found
it difficult to bring the infringing farmers to court,
although companies like Monsanto have always been very swift
and active in investigating possible violations across the
pakistan and other countries.
Nasir Amin
Mial to:
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Pakissan.com;
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