Intellectual property rights and limitations on farmers’ rights in Pakistan

Abstract

Farmers are the life blood of agriculture. The role of farmers for the services done to agro diversity and their efforts to seed preservation, sufficiently justify their rights to seed. In the wake of World Trade Organization- Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (WTO-TRIPS) agreement on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection for all innovations including plants. Farmers’ traditional rights are compromised over breeders of new plant varieties. This paper aims to describe international plant protection systems under WTO-TRIPS and examines two international conventions on plant protection i.e., Seed treaty and Convention on Biological Diversity. This paper employs a doctrinal method to examine the rights of farmers in Pakistan by adoption of “Plant Breeders’ Rights Act”. It is revealed that the Act limits the traditional rights of farmers’ and have helped to gratify plant breeders; Pakistan despite signatory to seed treaty has ignored to protect rights of farming communities while, in compliance to WTO-TRIPS went on to a stricter model of IPR barring farmer’s right even to seed except saving and exchanging’. The study proposes some strategies to balance between the rights of farmers with that of breeders, thus, to achieve a better reform system for both growers’ and agro technologists.