International regulations

Both seeds and plants are traded across national borders. Therefore, there are international regulations, both within the EU, the UN and the WTO, that regulate trade and rights. There are patent rights and plant breeders' rights that compensate plant breeders for their efforts and encourage innovation in plant breeding, but these rights make it more difficult in many countries for farmers who work with varietal diversity. Farmers' rights to manage seeds are not only important for reducing poverty, but also for maintaining the biodiversity of agricultural varieties and thus food security in the world.

Photo: Kore Foundation.

Plant Treaty

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) established the Plant Genetic Resources Treaty, which entered into force in 2004. 146 countries have signed the Treaty, which is a binding international agreement for the management of the plant diversity on which we depend for our food and agriculture. The parties to the Treaty commit to conserving and ensuring the sustainable use of plant genetic resources. The Treaty contains elements that ensure that plant genetic resources are openly available for use, research and improvement. It also aims to ensure the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. The Plant Genetic Resources Treaty is about the right of farmers to conserve and use their traditional knowledge; their right to equitable participation and sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources; their right to participate in decisions concerning the use and management of genetic resources; and their right to conserve, use, exchange and sell seeds.

The seed vault in Svalbard is part of Norway's contribution to achieving the goals of the treaty.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Goal No. 2 of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals is to end hunger in the world. To achieve this, several targets and milestones have been set to be reached. One of them is goal 2.5:

  • By 2020, maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and livestock, as well as related wild species, including through well-managed and abundant seed and plant reserves nationally, regionally and internationally, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, in line with international consensus.

As part of the effort to achieve this goal, seeds were deposited into the Svalbard seed vault in February 2020 from 36 international and regional gene banks, as well as national and private institutions. This brings the total number of seed packages stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault to more than one million, and the total number of depositors to 85.

World Trade Organization (WTO), TRIPS and UPOV

World Trade Organization (WTO)

Norway has been a member of the WTO since its inception in 1947. The WTO's task is to ensure the freest and most frictionless flow of trade between countries. When a country that does not accept patents on plants becomes a member of the WTO, they must introduce some form of plant variety protection due to TRIPS.

TRIPS

The TRIPS Agreement is an integral part of the WTO, and the abbreviation stands for “The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights”. The TRIPS Agreement requires countries to have a minimum level of plant variety protection. Most developing countries did not have any plant variety protection before they became members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). As a result, more and more countries are enacting laws for plant variety protection.

UPOV

International cooperation on plant variety protection takes place mainly in UPOV (The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants), which is a way of providing the plant variety protection required by TRIPS. The rules in UPOV have been revised several times, most recently in 1991.

topsoil science park
Photo: Kore Foundation.

What significance do the rules have?

Plant breeding is a long-term process, and it takes many years to develop new plant varieties. Much of the plant breeding now takes place in laboratories of professional plant breeders and private companies. To ensure revenue for this work, there are increasing demands for intellectual property rights, i.e. patents, for seeds, so that the companies that develop new varieties receive a time-limited exclusive right to commercial use of the varieties. Plant variety protection, or plant breeder's right as it is also called, is a separate form of rights that has been developed specifically with the protection of plant varieties in mind.

However, many of the patents are patents on traditional plant breeding and animal breeding. Traditional knowledge generated by local communities in developing countries has thus in recent years been patented by Western multinational companies without compensation.

Despite most countries being party to the Plant Protection Treaty, seed patents have led to increased concentration of power in food production, with a few companies controlling the seeds used. Strict seed patents prevent farmers in many countries from saving seeds for the next season, forcing them to buy new ones every year. This can create major debt problems and leads many small farmers into a relationship of dependence on seed companies.

It is not primarily through the WTO that patents on seeds are implemented, but through bilateral trade agreements (such as Norway's EFTA agreements) that require stricter patent regulations. There, membership in the latest UPOV Convention may be required, which will severely restrict the use of seeds. Norway itself has only ratified the convention from 1978. It involves fewer restrictions than the latest, from 1991, which all new members must adhere to.

Resources

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