Trade and Intellectual Property Rights in the Agricultural Seed Sector

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) has continued to fiercely debated between North and South, particularly with respect to its provisions for the agricultural sector. Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPS Agreement requires WTO member countries to offer some form of intellectual property protection for new plant varieties, either in the form of patents (common in the U.S.) or plant breeder’s rights (PBR). This paper analyses the effects of the introduction of PBRs in more than 100 importing countries on the value of exports of agricultural seeds and planting material from 11 exporting EU countries, including all principal traditional exporters of seeds. A gravity model, adapted for application to a specific sector, is estimated using panel data covering 15 years (1988-2002) of export flows in order to assess the effect of UPOV membership on seed imports. The results indicate that the introduction of a ‘minimal ’ form of IPR protection for plant varieties, the 1978 UPOV Treaty, is not correlated with a significant increase in seed imports. Adoption of the broader scope of protection contained in the 1991 UPOV Treaty is actually correlated with a significant, though relatively small, decline in seed imports from European countries. Together this suggests that IPRs do little to ‘kick-start ’ the inflow of technology, while a dynamic formulation of the model provides more support for state (path) dependence in this sector.