IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/umciwp/14365.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Agricultural Biotechnology And The Privatization Of Genetic Information: Implications For Innovation And Equity

Author

Listed:
  • Jackson, Lee Ann

Abstract

Changes in intellectual property rights systems have lead to the privatization of genetic resources and subsequently to the proliferation of new agricultural biotechnology products. Since these innovations have the potential to increase agricultural production while limiting environmental degradation, the benefits from these technologies could be far-reaching. However, while intellectual property rights are intended to encourage innovation in the private sector, private sector domination of the development of new products may skew the distribution of benefits away from marginally productive agricultural areas where poorer communities live. The primary purpose of this paper is to explore the tension between the public goals of encouraging innovative use of genetic resources and supporting the equitable access to genetic resources. The paper also discusses overlapping systems of intellectual property rights on genetic resources, and how this complex system of rights for genetic resources influences the relationship of users and producers of genetic knowledge. The paper will include a discussion of private and public good aspects of genetic resources and how various intellectual property systems affect genetic resource use. The paper will also examine the challenge of creating public policies and legal systems that encourage innovation and ensure the equitable distribution of benefits from genetic resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Jackson, Lee Ann, 2000. "Agricultural Biotechnology And The Privatization Of Genetic Information: Implications For Innovation And Equity," Working Papers 14365, University of Minnesota, Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:umciwp:14365
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.14365
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/14365/files/wp00-03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.14365?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. W. Lesser, 2000. "An economic approach to identifying an “effective sui generis system” for plant variety protection under trips," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 96-114.
    2. Giancarlo Moschini & Harvey Lapan, 1997. "Intellectual Property Rights and the Welfare Effects of Agricultural R&D," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(4), pages 1229-1242.
    3. Rausser, Gordon C. & Scotchmer, Suzanne & Simon, Leo K., 1999. "Intellectual Property and Market Structure in Agriculture," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt70j206tr, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    4. Murray Fulton, 1997. "The Economics of Intellectual Property Rights: Discussion," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1592-1594.
    5. Brush, Stephen B., 1998. "Bio-cooperation and the benefits of crop genetic resources: the case of Mexican maize," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 755-766, May.
    6. Wright, Brian D., 1997. "Crop genetic resource policy: the role of ex situ genebanks," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 41(1), pages 1-35.
    7. Keith E. Maskus, 2000. "Intellectual Property Rights in the Global Economy," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 99, April.
    8. Traxler, Greg & Falck-Zepeda, Jose Benjamin & Sain, Gustavo, 2000. "Genes, Germplasm And Developing Country Access To Genetically Modified Crop Varieties," Transitions in Agbiotech: Economics of Strategy and Policy, June 24-25, 1999, Washington, D.C. 25997, Regional Research Project NE-165 Private Strategies, Public Policies, and Food System Performance.
    9. Rausser, Gordon C. & Scotchmer, Suzanne & Simon, Leo K., 1999. "Intellectual Property and Market Structure in Agriculture," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt70j206tr, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    10. Judith I. Stallmann & A. Allan Schmid, 1987. "Property Rights in Plants: Implications for Biotechnology Research and Extension," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 69(2), pages 432-437.
    11. Sidhu, M.S., 1999. "Impact of Intellectual Property Rights on the Indian Seed Industry," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 54(3), September.
    12. Argyres, Nicholas S. & Liebeskind, Julia Porter, 1998. "Privatizing the intellectual commons: Universities and the commercialization of biotechnology," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 427-454, May.
    13. Singh, Arjun & Singh, Rai & Singh, Kanwar, 1999. "Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, Biotechnology, Biodiversity and Indian Agriculture," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 54(3), September.
    14. Cottier, Thomas, 1998. "The Protection of Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge: Towards More Specific Rights and Obligations in World Trade Law," Journal of International Economic Law, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(4), pages 555-584, December.
    15. Lesser, William H., 2000. "An Economic Approach To Identifying An 'Effective Sui Generis System' For Plant Variety Protection Unders Trips," Transitions in Agbiotech: Economics of Strategy and Policy, June 24-25, 1999, Washington, D.C. 25996, Regional Research Project NE-165 Private Strategies, Public Policies, and Food System Performance.
    16. Gupta, Anil K., 1999. "Making Indian Agriculture More Knowledge Intensive and Competitive: The Case of Intellectual Property Rights," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 54(3), September.
    17. Zilberman, David & Yarkin, Cherisa & Heiman, Amir, 1997. "Agricultural Biotechnology: Economic and International Implications," 1997 Conference, August 10-16, 1997, Sacramento, California 197037, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. Suzanne Scotchmer, 1991. "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Cumulative Research and the Patent Law," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 29-41, Winter.
    19. van Wijk, Jeroen & Cohen, Joel I. & Komen, John, 1993. "Intellectual Property Rights for Agricultural Biotechnology: Options and Implications for Developing Countries," ISNAR Archive 310753, CGIAR > International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thirtle, Colin G. & Srinivasan, Chittur S. & Heisey, Paul W., 2001. "Public Sector Plant Breeding In A Privatizing World," Agricultural Information Bulletins 33775, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Adrien Hervouet & Marc Baudry, 2011. "Promoting innovation in the seed market and biodiversity: the role of IPRs and commercialization rules," Post-Print hal-02012239, HAL.
    3. Schimmelpfennig, David E. & Pray, Carl E. & Brennan, Margaret F., 2004. "The impact of seed industry concentration on innovation: a study of US biotech market leaders," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 157-167, March.
    4. Baudry Marc & Hervouet Adrien, 2016. "Innovation in the Seed Market: The Role of IPRs and Commercialization Rules," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 51-68, May.
    5. Moschini, GianCarlo & Lapan, Harvey E. & Sobolevsky, Andrei, 2000. "Trading Technology As Well As Final Products: Roundup Ready Soybean and Welfare Effects in the Soybean Complex," Staff General Research Papers Archive 5317, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    6. Runge, C. Ford & Jackson, Lee Ann, 1999. "Labeling, Trade And Genetically Modified Organisms (Gmos): A Proposed Solution," Working Papers 14402, University of Minnesota, Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy.
    7. Giancarlo Moschini & Harvey Lapan & Andrei Sobolevsky, 2000. "Roundup ready® soybeans and welfare effects in the soybean complex," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 33-55.
    8. C.S. Srinivasan, 2005. "The International Trends In Plant Variety Protection," The Electronic Journal of Agricultural and Development Economics, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, vol. 2(2), pages 182-220.
    9. Srinivasan, C. S., 2003. "Concentration in ownership of plant variety rights: some implications for developing countries," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(5-6), pages 519-546.
    10. Claude Henry, 2004. "Propriété intellectuelle et développement ou comment imposer au monde un système perverti," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 12(3), pages 121-144.
    11. Gray, Richard S. & Malla, Stavroula & Tran, Kien C., 2005. "Pecuniary, Non-Pecuniary, and Downstream Research Spillovers: The Case of Canola," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24776, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    12. Sunil Kanwar & Robert Evenson, 2003. "Does intellectual property protection spur technological change?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 235-264, April.
    13. Foltz, Jeremy D. & Kim, Kwansoo & Barham, Bradford L., 2001. "A Dynamic Count Data Analysis of University Ag-Biotech Patents," Research Reports 25230, University of Connecticut, Food Marketing Policy Center.
    14. Demont, Matty & Tollens, Eric, 1999. "The Economics Of Agricultural Biotechnology: Historical And Analytical Framework," Working Papers 31845, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    15. Matthew S. Clancy & GianCarlo Moschini, 2017. "Intellectual Property Rights and the Ascent of Proprietary Innovation in Agriculture," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 9(1), pages 53-74, October.
    16. Marc Baudry & Adrien Hervouet, 2017. "The private value of plant variety protection and the impact of exemption rules," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 202-226, April.
    17. Nolan, Elizabeth & Santos, Paulo, 2009. "Evidence for increasing concentration in plant breeding industries in the United States and the European Union," 2009 Conference (53rd), February 11-13, 2009, Cairns, Australia 48060, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    18. Malla, Stavroula & Gray, Richard S., 2002. "Crop Research Incentives in a Privatized Industry: A Stochastic Approach," 2002 International Congress, August 28-31, 2002, Zaragoza, Spain 24936, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Lalitha, N., 2004. "Diffusion of agricultural biotechnology and intellectual property rights: emerging issues in India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 187-198, June.
    20. Xia, Yin & Buccola, Steven T., 2001. "Are Basic Science And Biotechnology Complementary Activities?," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20575, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:umciwp:14365. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciumnus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.