Governance and Micropolitics of Traditional ... - IPRsonline.org

Hamilton provides a good summary of the way biological materials in agriculture were
treated some 50 years ago, prior to developments in biotechnology and subsequent
strengthening and ‘harmonisation’ of intellectual property rights:
There was no distinction between tangible and intellectual property, and you owned what you
bought or bartered or produced or were given.
Farmers were breeders. They produced new genotypes by combining old ones from various
sources – the market place, their own fields, their neighbours, or, ultimately, wild species;
and they selected, grew and marketed the best genotypes.
When farmers sold seed to neighbouring farmers or in the market place, they sold at the best
market price and sold the seed along with all rights to use the seed. If the neighbour used
their seed to breed an even better genotype and make more profit, they didn't claim a share of
the neighbour's profit.
Living things that had not been bought, bartered or produced by people – i.e. all wildlife,
animals and plants and microbes – were not considered the property of anyone.
The result: unrestricted germplasm exchange, hybridization and selection, with literally
millions of “breeders” each selecting for adaptation to a different environment and with
different perceptions of the kind of product they wanted. This generated an unprecedented
incredible new range of domesticated biodiversity. Genetic variation within species of
domesticated plants and animals far exceeds that within wild species. The enormous range of
domesticated biodiversity is part of what stunned Charles Darwin into working out his theory
of evolution. Hamilton, R.S. (IRRI Website, Acc 17/6/2005)
Effectively farmers researched, developed and domesticated a diverse array of plant varieties
that contained a vast range of genetic variation. Seeds were shared with friends and other
farmers in the interest of developing more varieties and in the hope of finding new
adaptations to environmental conditions that may produce higher yields or better quality
grains. Scientists and western plant breeders recognised this and sought to collect as much of
this crop germplasm with the intent of developing such varieties using modern technologies.
Not only did they find agricultural varieties with unique and important qualities for plant
breeding, they also gathered herbs and wild plants with medicinal qualities from community
healers and shamans, realising the potential these could have in modern pharmaceuticals or
cosmetics.
During the late 1960s, through the 1970s advances in plant breeding saw the development of a
range of new advanced varieties including hybrids or ‘high yielding varieties’ (HYVs). These
varieties were widely promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Institutes to achieve a
higher agricultural productive output to feed an ever expanding global population and assist in
the reduction of existing hunger. Furthermore these were promoted by the Bretton Woods
Institutes as part of finance, aid and development packages. It was widely perceived that the
only way to achieve goals of hunger and malnutrition reduction was through new agricultural
technologies that increased yield, and were supposed to supplement deficient vitamin or
calorie intake that is associated with malnutrition and an array of diseases. Since that time
many activists and academics have been critical of the way agriculture became rapidly
7