پیشرفت های اخیر در مالکیت معنوی و قدرت در بخش خصوصی مربوط به مواد غذایی و کشاورزی

The legal protection of intellectual property (IP) has allowed private persons and enterprises to assert exclusive rights in relation to certain agricultural innovations. Whether through the protection of breeding innovations under plant variety rights protection laws or through the patenting of genes and gene fragments, the increasing involvement of IPRs in agriculture has effected a shift of agricultural research from public to private institutions. This article examines the changes in the international IP landscape which has facilitated these developments and looks at the impacts of modern IP developments upon agricultural research and farmers. It concludes with a consideration of IP liability issues arising from the development of GM agriculture.

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) are rights of exclusive exploitation which are conferred by the state in relation to innovations which are considered worthy of incentivising. Thus for example commercially useful inventions are protected by patent laws and new plant varieties are protected by plant variety rights (PVR) laws. Since the late nineteenth century international consensus on the form which national IP laws should take has been effected through international conventions and agreements. The most recent of these is the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) which obliges WTO members to introduce, for example patent and PVP laws which adhere to prescribed norms. As a consequence agricultural innovators are assured of protection of their innovations in all WTO member states. At the same time the development of recombinant DNA technology has facilitated the capture of agri-biotechnological innovations as private patents. This in turn has led to the spectre of the commodification or the privatisation of food by those life-sciences companies which have the financial capacity to engage in agricultural research which had previously been the province of public research institutes. This article looks at a number of recent developments in the commodification of agricultural innovation and considers some of the suggestions which have been made to respond to the prospect of the privatisation of food.

A new Green Revolution is required to deal with the current food security crisis. Spillane (1999) reported that by 2020 “cereal production will need to increase by 41%, meat by 63% and roots and tubers by 40% … without any significant expansion of agricultural area.” However, Shiva (1991) counsels that it is important to bear the negative results of that revolution in mind, particularly the decline of soil fertility resulting from the excessive use of fertilisers, pollution caused by the excessive use of pesticides, as well as the growth of salinity and the water logging of soils. Even if these environmental impacts can be circumvented, the economic impacts must also be born in mind. Increases in yields were accompanied by reductions in farm income, through the expense for farmers of purchasing chemical inputs and the reduction of selling prices in glutted markets. New agricultural technologies should contribute to food security through increasing the aggregate supply of food. To this end, policies are required to promote agricultural research which could contribute to food security in developing countries, particularly in relation to orphan crops. Where IP could make its greatest contribution is in the incentivisation of beneficial agricultural innovations.