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The ability to grow resilient, nutritious food in adequate quantity for a growing global population in the face of climate change must necessarily be rooted in the revival of seed diversity. Thus, farmers’ complex knowledge, and their right to save, adapt, exchange and sell seed must be recognized and protected in policy and practice.

UPOV does not make all its documents accessible to the public, but UPOV member states that have freedom of information legislation provide access to Restricted Area documents.

The 5th session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) convened from 24 to 28 September 2013 in Muscat, Oman. The UPOV Convention was again, and more intensely than ever before, a topic of discussions and resolutions.

Farmers’ Rights

The Plant Breeders Bill, Bulletin 6355-01, was approved in March 2010 by the Chilean Deputy Chamber and is now before the Senate. It will implement the UPOV 91 accession of Chile. Large demonstrations took place in around twenty Chilean cities against this bill (for more information see the article by Lucía Sepúlveda further below).

Chile has in 1996 joined the 1978 Act of the UPOV Convention to meet the WTO/TRIPS requirement for intellectual property rights protection of plant varieties. This agreement is implemented by The Law of Plant Breeders Rights N° 19.342 of 1994.

The G8’s “New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa”, established in 2012, is pushing further the corporate agenda on African agriculture.

TWN: LDC TRIPS exemption approved with mixed reactions On 11 June the World Trade Organisation (WTO) members adopted a decision for the world's poorest nations (known as "Least Developed Countries (LDCs)") to exercise their right to be exempted from implementing the organisation's intellectual property rights  Agreement (also known as "the TRIPS Agreement"). The exemption is until 1 July 2021 and is without prejudice to the right of LDCs to request an extension of the exemption, beyond 2021.

The Economic, Social and Ethical Committee of the High Council of Biotechnologies (an authority for evaluation, expertise and consultation, established by law in 2008) in its Recommendations on Intellectual Property, published on 12th June 2013, made several statements regarding the interpretation and further development of PVP law.

In a letter issued on 20 September 2012 (now published in an unofficial English translation), Henk Bleker, the Dutch Minister for Agriculture and Foreign Trade, stated that “UPOV 1991 cannot be applied to all developing countries but that a different approach is desired.”

The UPOV Council, the Consultative Committee, and the Administrative and Legal Committee met between 20 and 22 March 2013

The key matters addressed were, among others, the Plant Breeders’ Right Bill of Zanzibar; Programme and Budget 2014-2015, Explanatory Notes to the 1991 Convention on three topics, including Essentially Derived Varieties, and Harvested Materials; developments of relevance to UPOV in other international fora; and participation of observers at the Advisory Committee to the Administrative and Legal Committee.

Civil society organisations from the SADC region, and around the world have condemned the SADC draft Protocol for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (Plant Breeders’ Rights) as spelling disaster for small farmers and food security in the region. These groups, representing millions of farmers in Africa and around the world have submitted their concerns to the SADC Secretariat. They are calling for the rejection of the Protocol and urgent consultations with farmers, farmer movements and civil society before it’s too late.