Association for Plant Breeding for the Benefit of Society

APBREBES is a global network of civil society organisations that advocates for plant breeding for the benefit of society, the full implementation of farmers’ rights to plant genetic resources and the promotion of agricultural biodiversity.

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by South Centre & APBREBES

The study "The UPOV accession process: Preventing appropriate PVP laws for new members", published today by the South Centre and APBREBES, analyses the accession process for countries that want to become members of UPOV and provides both surprising and worrying results.

The APBREBES opinion paper by Jack Kloppenburg, Professor Emeritus, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and  Secretary of the  Open Source Seed Initiative, shows the linkages between the concentration of the seed industry, intellectual property rights, and restricted access to plant genetic material for further breeding. Even if the situation in the United States cannot be compared with that in other countries, the findings and demands in the article are certainly of interest worldwide.