Farmers’ Rights, Protection of Biodiversity and Preservation of Genetic Resources. The Experience of Canada

Farmers’ Rights, introduced by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, recognize that farmers and rural communities have contributed greatly to and continue to contribute to the creation, conservation, exchange and enhancement of genetic resources. They should therefore be recognized and strengthened. A predominant question in Farmers’ Rights is overcoming the individualistic approach on which the intellectual property rights are based, so that collective rights of plant genetic resources can be promoted and protected. In fact, the individualistic appropriation approach made genetic resources available to a few and subtracted these resources from use and economic exploitation of local communities. International corporations, moreover, patented the resources rendering them non-transferable among farmers. Farmers’ Rights must be recognized at the international level and should be expanded to the entire human rights community as part of the Right to Food. They include the protection of traditional knowledge, and the right to participate equitably in benefit-sharing and in national decision-making about plant genetic resources.

Keywords: Farmers’ Rights, Collective Rights, Intellectual Property Rights, Biodiversity, Local Communities, Right to Food

Lorenza Paoloni, <i>Farmers’ Rights</i>, tutela della biodiversità e salvaguardia delle risorse genetiche: l’esperienza del Canada in "AGRICOLTURA ISTITUZIONI MERCATI " 3/2009, pp 11-39, DOI: 10.3280/AIM2009-003002