New breeders rights may mean the seed is someone else's

摘要

AUSTRALIA'S broadacre farmers, who have had to make major adjustments to grain marketing in recent years, are facing a further cultural shift in the years ahead with Plant Breeders Rights (PBR). Increasingly both public and private breeding programsare obtaining PBR for new field crop varieties they produce. Use of PBR varieties means farmers have to forego their traditional right to sell seed from the harvested crop to their neighbours for sowing. It may also mean having to pay royalties to the breeding institution, either through the price of seed or on the crop produced. Under PBR, varieties become the property of the breeding organisation, and if farmers try to sell seed for sowing to anybody else without permission they risk a 50,000 dollarfine.