TK and Plant Genetic Resources:

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• TK and Plant Genetic Resources
• The Case of Farmers Rights
• Enrico Bertacchini
• enrico.bertacchini_at_unito.it
• Torino October 8th, 2007

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TK Plant Genetic Resources

• TK associated with biological resources
• TK integrated in biological resources
• Focus on PGRFA
• the product or embodiment of knowledge of
  past and current generations of farmers which
  have developed, conserved and improved them.

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Modernization of traditional agriculture
Agricultural Biodiversity, Farmers
varieties, Landraces
Commercial agriculture
Traditional Farmers
Externality
Modern Varieties
Modern Breeders
IPRs
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Key issues

• Redress the reward imbalance between
  traditional farmers and modern breeders
  contribution in crop innovation
• Enhancing in situ conservation and sustainable
  use of PGRFA

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Recognition of Farmers Rights

• IUPGR 1989 (non binding)
• ITPGR 2001 (binding)
• Article 9
• contribution that the local and indigenous
  communities and farmers of all regions of the
  world, particularly those in the centers of
  origin and crop diversity, have made and will
  continue to make for the conservation and
  development of plant genetic resources which
  constitute the basis of food and agriculture
  production throughout the world.

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Realization of Farmers Rights

• Responsibility rests with national governments
• Protect TK relevant to PGRFA (Art. 9.2)
• Benefit sharing from the utilization of PGRFA
  (Art. 9.2)
• Participation in decision-making for the
  management of agrobiological resources(Art. 9.2)
• Existing rights of farmers to save, use and
  exchange farm- saved seeds, subject to national
  laws and as appropriate (Art. 9.3)

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Legal mechanisms to implement Farmers Rights

• Missing property rights argument
• Allocating rights to make farmers appropriate the
  value of their contribution
• Sui Generis IPRs systems
• Access Laws

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Sui Generis IPRs for farmers varieties

• Justification
• Farmers as innovative breeders
• Objections
• Identification of right holders and criteria for
  protection
• Anticommons Tragedy

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Access Laws

• Justification
• Prevent misappropriation
• Enable bioprospecting
• Objections
• High transaction costs, Information Asymmetry
• The commercial value of agro genetic diversity is
  low (water-diamond paradox)

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Funding and neo-regulatory strategies

• Justification
• Regulatory intervention with forms of taxation
  and subsidization for in situ conservation
• Low transaction costs centralized mechanism
• Objections
• Administrative and measurement costs
• Efficacy

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• Do these approaches really support traditional
  farming systems in developing and conserving
  farmers varieties and genetic diversity?

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Farmers management of PGRFA

• Development of farmers varieties is the result
  of a collective and cumulative community effort
• Saving and freely exchanging seeds are the basis
  of in situ conservation and farmers varieties
  development
• Traditional farmers practices rely more on
  mechanism based on reciprocity and cooperation

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The Missing Box
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Objectives for implementing Farmers Rights

• Building a legal space for seed social sharing
• Right to save, exchange seeds across the fence
  in order to develop farmers varieties
• Recognition of the dynamic conservation effort by
  traditional farmers when using improved (and
  protected) varieties

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A stewardship approach

• Relaxation of seed laws (quasi IPRs) to enable
  the use and exchange of farmers varieties (See
  Art. 6 ITPGR)
• Traditional farmers immunization against IPRs
  infringement actions on behalf of non market seed
  exchange (fair use doctrine)

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• Thank You
• This presentation is released under a Creative
  Commons Attribuzione 2.5 Italia License
  (http//creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/it/)

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