SDG 2: zero hunger, food and plant-related intellectual property, and access to plant genetic resources

This chapter explores the highly contested relationship between intellectual property (IP) and access to plant and genetic resources in the context of SDG 2 ‘zero hunger’. The effects of climate change adversely affect food production, while resource-intensive industrial agricultural production greatly contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions. Plant genetic resources in agriculture, considered vital in both food production and climate change mitigation through the preservation of agrobiodiversity, are regulated by IP and international trade. In tracing the intersecting historical trajectories of international development and the ‘informationalization’ of plant genetic resources in the context of neoliberal international restructuring through treaties such as the TRIPS Agreement 1994, this chapter argues that the relationship between SDG 2, food and plant-related IP, and access to plant genetic resources must be contextualized within a recent history of social struggles around what critical IP scholars have long recognized as ‘information imperialism’. The chapter investigates the history of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act 2001 (India) as a case study to examine not only the appropriateness of extending IP rights over plant genetic resources in agriculture, but the transnational politics that the commodification of plant genetic resources in agriculture provokes. In looking to the future, the chapter concludes with comments on the future of ‘feeding the world’ while ‘saving the planet’ in the emerging context of new digital technologies in plant genomics and data analytics.