Here’s a turn-up for the books. Our friends at the CAS-IP blog link to a couple of papers that examine the influence of intellectual property rights on vegetable diversity. I’m going to come right out and admit that I haven’t read the papers. But like CAS-IP, I’m intrigued by this quote:
More than 16% of all vegetable varieties that have ever been patented were commercially available in 2004.
Or, to put it another way, less than 84% of all vegetable varieties that have ever been patented were no longer available in 2004.
The primary argument for maintaining crop diversity ((I’m not sure that that would be my primary argument, but let that be.)) is based on the need to maintain a safety net of genetic diversity, to have a broad supply of genes available to breeders who can create more productive, weather-hardy, insect resistant, fungus resistant, and better-tasting crops. … If the meaning of diversity is linked to the survival of ancient varieties, then the lessons of the twentieth century are grim. If it refers instead to the multiplicity of present choices available to breeders, then the story is more hopeful.
The crucial part, of course, is how to measure diversity, and how you interpret it. I deliberately snipped out what I consider the money quote from the passage above. Here it is:
We hope our findings stimulate a discussion about the proper measure for that diversity.
Off you go. Discuss away.
I have read this paper with great attention.
I have great, great trouble with the data. For instance, the table says that no turnip has ever been PVP protected; according to the Office’s data base two have been. The authors highlighted in a previous paper, with a ‘hurrah’, that Fowler and Mooney made a math error in their 1983 “Shattering…”. They also succumb to a simple subtraction at the bottom of the first column.
It also appears that the authors have only accounted for ‘patents pending’ (i.e. pending applications) and ‘expired patents’ and thus omitted the bulk of titles in force which should dominate the segment of recently created varieties in catalogues. If this finding is correct, the whole study is of course disqualified.
I also have great, great trouble with the findings, with regard to not only on the main conclusions, but also the detail. I will not discuss the main conclusions since the study, by design, does not authorise them. As to the detail, for example, it is noted that “the vast majority of extant diversity in the U.S. vegetable market is due to local innovation or importation”. That broadly matches George W. Bush’s “More and more of our imports come from overseas.”