Plant Breeders’ Rights and Genetic Resources

The loss of genetic variability in crop plants has been particularly great in recent years following the modernisation of agriculture in the developing countries with emphasis on high-yielding and broadly adapted varieties. There has been considerable concern about the problem of uniformity and consequent vulnerability of our crop plants. The legislation on plant breeders’ rights and patenting of seeds in the western countries has to be seen in this context. This legislation can be expected to lead to further erosion of our genetic resources. It runs counter to the various experimental approaches which are now being proposed by the plant breeders, such as varietal diversification in time and in space to erect genetic barriers against the spread of pathogens and pests and breeding of cultivars which retain a significant amount of residual variability. The legislation is also expected to restrict the flow of breeding material from the International Research Institutes of the of the CGIAR System to the developing countries for selection under local conditions, and should provide little incentive for new selection pressures in breeding programmes for a more efficient kind of agriculture based on renewable sources of energy.