Are intellectual property rights stifling agricultural biotechnology in developing countries: IFPRI 2000-2001 Annual Report Essay
Philip Pardey,
Brian Wright () and
Carol Nottenburg
No 2001Essay2, Annual report essays from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Abstract:
For more than a century, plant breeders in government-funded research centers have sought out crop varieties with characteristics that might help poor farmers in developing countries grow more food. They have painstakingly bred and cross-bred these varieties through generations to achieve a desirable mix of characteristics. At an accelerating pace in the 1960s and 1970s the work of these breeders changed the developing world — the higher-yielding varieties of wheat, rice, and other food staples they produced helped avert catastrophic famine in Asia — and their work continues to improve the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Now, however, critics of the newest tool in the agricultural researchers' toolbox — genetic engineering — argue that the new environment for agricultural research may leave farmers in the developing countries out in the cold. The largely misplaced concerns that patents and other forms of intellectual property are currently severely constraining the freedom to operate in developing countries is diverting attention from more crucial issues for agricultural researchers working on staple food crops.
Keywords: intellectual property rights; plant breeding; innovation; plant genetics; engineering; biotechnology; developing countries; genetic engineering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/158119
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fpr:anress:2001essay2
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Annual report essays from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().