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Home arrow Research Projects arrow IP9 - Biotechnology arrow NCCR Publications arrow Benefiting from Biotechnology: Pro-poor IPRs and Public-Private Partnerships
Benefiting from Biotechnology: Pro-poor IPRs and Public-Private Partnerships Print
Benefiting from Biotechnology: Pro-poor IPRs and Public-Private Partnerships, NCCR Trade Regulation Working Paper 2007/35, November 2007.
Abstract

The Green Revolution has contributed to the alleviation of poverty and hunger for hundreds of
millions of people, but it remains technically and institutionally limited. It has largely bypassed small
farms located in dry agro-ecological regions and its institutional ‘top-down’ approach was not
equipped to address social, economic and environmental variations at the local level. However, with
new developments in biotechnology, including genetic engineering, unprecedented possibilities for
addressing the needs of smallholders in developing countries have arisen. Yet, there are new
challenges too. The new technology is driven by the private sector, which is not attracted to investing
in research on developing biotechnology specifically addressing the needs of small farms. Moreover,
the accessibility of the existing technologies to small farms is arguably impeded by the intellectual
property rights (IPRs) leading to monopoly prices and hindering technology diffusion. In this context,
this paper analyses how IPRs can be domestically tailored within the existing international
commitments so as to encourage the development of technologies that favour and are accessible to
small-scale farmers in developing countries. In particular, it proposes, for the first time, a special IPRs
regime designed for public–private partnerships (PPPs), which would go beyond contractual
arrangements and provide a more favourable institutional climate for the development of pro-poor
and pro-small-scale biotechnology.

Key Words

Biotechnology – Intellectual Property – Agriculture - Small Scale Farms – Developing Countries –
Least Developed Countries – TRIPs – WTO – Innovation – Public-private Partnerships

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