Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Jitendra P. Srivastava
• David Gisselquist

Titel

Easing Barriers to Movement of Plant Varieties for Agricultural Development

Ort / Verlag

The World Bank

Erscheinungsjahr

1997

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This volume presents recommendations and papers presented in an international workshop on seed policies organized in 1995 by the World Bank. Papers and discussions at the workshop identified reforms to speed the flow of private seed technology into developing countries. Key recommendations advise governments to: a) work more with the private seed industry; b) allow private companies to introduce new varieties without prior government approval; c) make seed certification optional rather than compulsory; d) give private companies access to public varieties and breeding lines; e) establish legal processes for companies to register ownership of varieties; and f) focus phytosanitary controls on realistic pest and disease threats, and remove other non-tariff barriers on seed imports. Foreign varieties are available for international borrowing when governments allow. Even with pervasive government limits on private variety introductions, a large share of improved varieties released in developing countries comes directly from foreign crossed, and most of the rest depends at least in part on foreign parents. Papers at the workshop demonstrate that roughly half of the wheat and a quarter of the rice varieties which government research agencies have approved and released in developing countries have come directly from foreign crosses. Private companies similarly locate breeding in selected countries, distributing lines to other countries for testing and introduction. Papers at the workshop described private company strategies for maize and cotton. From the early 1980s, an increasing number of developing countries have been allowing private seed companies to introduce new varieties and otherwise contribute to agricultural development. Papers at the workshop described seed policies, reforms, and impacts in India, Turkey, Peru, and Bangladesh.