The Protection of Farmers’ Rights Under International Law and its Implementation in Indonesia

Abstract

Farmers’ rights are a concept proposed by Mooney in the 1980s to reconcile the growing conflict over plant genetic resources, known as the “seed war”. The concept was then promoted by a Canadian non-governmental organisation, the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI). to address growing concerns over genetic erosion and the North-South “gene drain”. RAFI argued that these farmers’ rights should be considered a new type of collective intellectual property right (IPR) meant to counter Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBRs) as stipulated under the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV Convention).3 The underlying principle of protecting farmers’ rights was to counterbalance the protection of new plant varieties through IPR regimes, operating to ensure the right of farmers to access their community-developed varieties.