ABSTRACT
The previous chapters have extensively examined the case for a system of farmers’ rights from the perspective of supporting on-farm conservation and the development of plant genetic resources (PGR). The rationale for farmers’ rights rests principally on two arguments, which may be called the ‘conservation argument’ and the ‘equity argument’ (Swanson, Pearce and Cervigni, 1994). The conservation argument rests on the premise that treating PGR as a public good to be freely accessed and used by all provides no incentives for its conservation. The lack of incentives for retaining agricultural biodiversity arises because the crucial role played by farmers and farming communities in the conservation and development of PGR generally goes unrewarded. The conservation rationale sees farmers’ rights as a framework that enables farmers/ farming communities to appropriate a portion of the value of the agricultural biodiversity that they conserve and develop – thereby creating incentives for their sustained conservation and enhancement. The equity argument rests on the premise that the availability of all PGR used in institutional breeding programs today is the result of enormous efforts towards conservation, selection and improvement of PGR by rural communities in different countries that go unrewarded when PGR are freely appropriated by these programs. Intellectual property regimes reward institutional breeders with monopoly rights when they develop new varieties, but they provide no rewards to those responsible for the conservation of PGR, who provide the foundation for the development of new varieties. Farmers’ rights provisions represent an attempt to redress the asymmetry in the rewards accruing to institutional breeders for innovations and farming communities that conserve PGR.
