UPOV 91 and trade agreements: Compromising farmers’ right to save and sell seeds
Both Ends | 7 November 2018
UPOV 91 and trade agreements: Compromising farmers’ right to save and sell seeds
The international Convention UPOV 91 is relatively unknown. But this treaty is quite problematic for smallholder farmers and agroecological approaches: by imposing intellectual property rights on seeds, it can restrict the farmers’ right to save and re-use seeds and undermine local seed systems. At the same time we note increased effort to include references to UPOV 91 in EU trade agreements, which would further aggravate the related problems. With this paper, we aim to facilitate an urgently needed debate on the relations between UPOV 91, national seed laws and trade agreements – and the potential implications on the livelihoods of subsistence farmers in the Global South.
Read the report here (pdf)
