Seed wars

About this book

Seed Wars is a comprehensive overview of the current domestic and international legal controversies regarding intellectual property protections for plant genetic resources (PGRs) over the past three decades. The book examines these controversies on 3 fronts: (1) the rise of intellectual property protections for plant varieties and the enclosure of the "genetic" commons; (2) the subsequent move of the agro-chemical industry from manufacturing fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides to "manufacturing" seeds in the context of industrial agriculture; and (3) the emergence of overlapping regimes of domestic and multilateral treaties, such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property, the Convention on Biodiversity, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, from the 1990s on. Finally, this book speculates on possible directions that intellectual property protection for PGRs may take in the twenty-first century.