65 Jingsong Li, Janice Jiggins and Yiching Song
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Research site in Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. The photo shows a typical landform in this region.
macy of their rights/claims to benefit-sharing. The development of ABS mechanisms
is also feeding into ongoing policy discussions on how to implement the ABS
provisions of the Convention on Biological
Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol.
ABS in China
Plant genetic resources (PGRs) for food
and agriculture have been developed over
millennia to satisfy the most fundamental
of human needs. The free flow and
exchange of these resources was once
governed by individuals and communities.
However, this has changed as intellectual
property rights (IPR) regimes have been
applied to agriculture. In international and
national law, IPRs often overshadow or
even extinguish the natural rights of farmers and farming communities to landraces
and varieties they have developed, largely
benefiting commercial plant breeders.2
These companies have been able to develop
new seeds, often based on farmers’ PGRs,
and then protect their investment through
commercial patents or plant variety protection laws which prevent farmers from
legally exchanging and saving seed for
future use (Tansey and Rajotte, 2008).
The recently agreed Nagoya Protocol is
attempting to address this by requiring
those accessing genetic resources for
research and development to share the
benefits they derive with the countries and
communities that provide these resources.
But in practise, in China, there is still no
formal ABS policy, although in 2011, the
Chinese government set up China’s
National Biodiversity Commission, which
has started to draft national ABS regulations. Legislation to promote farmers’
rights still lags behind protection of
commercial breeders’ rights, however.
There are also uncertainties over who
‘owns’ varieties developed through PPB
and how benefits should be shared. Discussions with farmers have shown that the
concept of intellectual property is new to
2 A landrace is a local variety of a domesticated animal or plant species which has developed
largely through natural processes, by adaptation to the natural and cultural environment in
which it lives. It differs from a formal breed which has been selectively bred deliberately.
Landraces are usually more genetically and physically diverse than formal breeds. Source:
Wikipedia.