International Development and Intellectual Property: The Impact of Seed Exchange and Replacement on Innovation among Small-Scale Farmers in India

全球发展面临的主要挑战之一是如何安排知识产权方面的法律和习俗，以鼓励创新。汇集了Radick在科学和技术的长期历史中关于知识产权的理论和概念工作、Kochupillai关于知识产权和印度植物品种创新的法律实证研究以及生活艺术基金会的资源，本项目将研究一个具有创新精神的印度农民的样本，以探讨在发展中国家组织创新的两种方式的比较优势和劣势。民族印度农民传统上参与一种非正式的文化，一季又一季地保存种子（种子储存）和交换种子（种子交换），在这种制度下，定期出现和培育新品种。最近，印度政府推行了一种不同的制度，修改了法律，加强了对国营机构或私营公司科学衍生品种的知识产权保护，并鼓励农民通过从市场上购买种子定期更换种子库存（种子更换）。一个关键的问题是，越来越多地推广种子替代政策和以“排他性”为基本理由的知识产权制度，是否会对印度农村农民的分享文化产生负面影响，从而对种子相关创新产生负面影响。印度农民Dadji Ramji Khobrajani的案例生动地说明了这种影响的可能性。他收集种子，年复一年地重新种植，最终培育出了一种新的水稻品种，在整个地区流行开来。作为该地区小农的典型文化，Khobrakan很乐意与其他村庄的农民分享他的种子。但是，当大学的研究人员把他的种子进行实验，并在四年后发布了一个改进的品种，他们没有信贷Khobrakan。此外，根据知识产权和植物品种法，Khobrakan无权分享这种新品种销售的任何利润。在第一阶段，一名项目研究人员将部分在利兹大学，部分在慕尼黑的马克斯·普朗克创新与竞争研究所，对相关学术文献进行系统的背景研究，同时使用植物品种申请数据库（可从印度植物管理局免费获得）确定印度农民进行采访。第二阶段是在印度进行为期两个月的实地考察，从一个地区到另一个地区，对创新农民--即已注册新植物品种的农民--进行深入访谈，以了解他们对印度植物品种创新的不同知识产权文化的看法和经验，以及对农业生物多样性的相关影响。研究人员还将在印度当地/地区电台发表讲话，宣传该项目。在第三阶段，研究人员将返回利兹处理访谈数据，并撰写一篇期刊文章，一篇或多篇贸易期刊文章等，还有一份给基金会的报告在整个项目中，研究人员将利用社交媒体、基金会网站和相关手段宣传项目的调查结果。项目结束时将在班加罗尔举行一次会议，项目小组、农民、政策制定者和植物育种者将参加会议。联合国最近发布了一份报告（http：//unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pdf），强调了小规模可持续农业对世界各地农业和环境的未来的重要性，因此这项研究特别相关，对国际上的小农户和农业都有意义。

One of the major challenges facing global development is the question of how to arrange the laws and customs surrounding intellectual property (IP) in order to encourage innovation. Bringing together Radick's theoretical and conceptual work on IP over the long-run of the history of science and technology, Kochupillai's legal-empirical studies of IP and innovation concerning plant varieties in India, and the resources of the Art of Living Foundation, this project will study a sample of innovative Indian farmers in order to explore the comparative advantages and disadvantages of two ways of organising innovation in a developing nation. Indian farmers have traditionally participated in an informal culture of keeping seeds season after season (seed saving) and of swapping seeds (seed exchange), and under this system, new varieties have periodically emerged and been cultivated. More recently, the Indian government has promoted a different system, changing the law to give enhanced IP protection to scientifically derived varieties from state-run institutions or private firms, and encouraging farmers to replace their seed stocks regularly (seed replacement) by purchasing seeds from the marketplace. A key question is whether this increasing promotion of policies of seed replacement and IP regimes that have "exclusivity" as their basic underlying rationale could have a negative effect on cultures of sharing, and therefore on seed-related innovations, among farmers in rural India. The possibility of such an effect was dramatized by the case of the Indian farmer Dadji Ramji Khobragade. Collecting seeds and replanting them year on year, he eventually developed a new rice variety which became popular throughout the region. As is typical of the culture among small farmers of the regions, Khobragade was happy to share his seeds with farmers from other villages. But when university researchers took his seeds to conduct experiments, and four years later released an improved variety, they did not credit Khobragade. Furthermore, under a law governing intellectual property (IP) and plant varieties, Khobragade was not entitled to any share of the profits from the sale of this new variety.The project will have three phases. In the first phase, a project researcher based partly at the University of Leeds and partly at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich, will undertake systematic background study of the relevant scholarly literatures while at the same time using the Plant Variety Application database (freely available from the Plant Authority of India) to identify Indian farmers for interview. The second phase will be a two-month field study in India, travelling from region to region in order to conduct in-depth interviews with innovative farmers - that is, farmers who have registered new plant varieties - in order to learn their views and experiences regarding the different cultures of IP surrounding Indian plant-variety innovation, as well as the related impacts on agricultural biodiversity. The researcher will also speak on local/regional radio in India to publicise the project. In the third phase the researcher will return to Leeds to process the interview data and produce a journal article, one or more articles for trade journals etc., and a report for the Foundation. Throughout the project the researcher will use social media, the Foundation's website and related means to promote the project's findings. The project will end with a conference taking place in Bangalore and involving the project team, farmers, policy-makers and plant breeders. With the UN having recently released a report (http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pdf) stressing the importance of small-scale sustainable farming to the future of agriculture and the environment around the world, this research is particularly pertinent, and has relevance for small farmers and agriculture internationally.