ABSTRACT

Crop-protection products are often developed by departments or subsidiaries of companies that are involved in pharmaceutical development. Libraries of compounds and gene-based materials may be tested for use in both areas, and the technologies for sourcing and screening materials are also broadly similar, although the economics of product development in the sectors are extremely different. Where such links with a pharmaceutical company exist, cropprotection companies are more likely to be familiar with the CBD and current practice in benefit-sharing, and to include aspects of benefit-sharing in their agreements with suppliers of genetic resources. However, the crop-protection industry also has some similarities with the seed industry in that

basic research is often conducted in the public sector, from which genetic resources are passed, often for free, to industry. Furthermore, most crop-protection companies have synthesis programmes that use strategies involving model compounds based on templates originally discovered from nature as natural products. Since product discovery of this kind does not entail seeking access to new genetic resources, crop-protection companies have seen little rationale for sharing the benefits that arise from the development of such commercial products. This contrasts with the pharmaceutical industry, where royalty arrangements generally guarantee benefitsharing, however modest, for derivatives of genetic resources, even for wholly synthesized analogues.