Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

May 28, 2024

A new treaty on genetic resources

There’s a new international treaty on the block. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) members have just approved the Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge. What does it do? It’s basically about disclosing where genetic resources came from when claiming a patent.

Broadly, where a claimed invention in a patent application is based on genetic resources, each contracting party shall require applicants to disclose the country of origin or source of the genetic resources. Where the claimed invention in a patent application is based on traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources, each contracting party shall require applicants to disclose the Indigenous Peoples or local community, as applicable, who provided the traditional knowledge.

Is this in line with the International Plant Treaty? The new treaty certainly recognizes the ITPGRFA:

“Source of genetic resources” refers to any source from which the applicant has obtained the genetic resources, such as a research center, gene bank, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, the Multilateral System of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), or any other ex situ collection or depository of genetic resources.

Broadly supportive, I would say, but will require some linking up of databases at the very least.

May 27, 2024

Seeds find a way

Jeremy’s latest newsletter is out, and has a nice piece on disobedience of the rules of the EU’s Common Catalogue.

Little seed has its say

The motto of the European Union on agricultural diversity, especially with regard to seeds, has long been Everything Not Permitted Is Forbidden. That is to say, only varieties registered in the Common Catalogue are permitted to be placed on the market, all others cannot be sold. We’ve seen glimmers of hope over the past couple of decades as the EU tries to loosen these restrictions for purposes of conservation or to support smaller-scale growers, but nothing really substantive.

One of the umbrella organisations campaigning for people to have the freedom to plant whatever varieties they want is Let’s Liberate Diversity, a coalition of like-minded organisations that actually gets EU funding to campaign against the EU. All of which is a long introduction to a recent article from a Swedish activist that offers an interesting perspective on the current state of play and the “different degrees of disobedience to the EU”.

Sivert Stiernebro recounts his experience at a hearing in Sweden on proposed new seed regulations and makes this telling point:

It’s apparent that the legislation proposal has been carefully thought through to cover all types of plant reproductive materials and uses. A variety that doesn’t qualify for the official list can be registered as a “conservation variety”; but even if it falls outside the framework, there exists category after category of ‘special rules’. However all seeds must enter the system—a kind of population registry for plants. It could provide an opportunity for more varieties to become legal. But it could also become hopelessly expensive and cumbersome to handle unusual seed varieties. Registration and control fees could be a more effective barrier than explicit bans, which would arouse every gardener’s spirit of protest!

The part I truly do not understand — and Stiernebro doesn’t either — is why there even needs to be a single system for all seeds at all scales. Sivert writes about “conflicting interests”; where, truly, is the conflict between a farmer growing, say, 200 hectares of peas to be picked and frozen within the hour and an organic grower who wants to supply fresh peas for as long a season as possible? Or a gardener with a bad back who wants tall growing peas that they don’t have to stoop to pick”?

And speaking of lost vegetable varieties (slick, eh?) kudos to David Shields, whose new book The Ark of Taste has been shortlisted for a James Beard awards. Shields has done sterling work to help recover older varieties that were thought to have been lost, among them Cocke’s Prolific Corn, Sea Island White Flint Corn, and the Bradford Watermelon.

May 15, 2024