Intellectual Property Rights in the Seed Industry: Barriers to Sustainable Agriculture

The dynamics of the dominant industrial agriculture system restrict the seed industry’s innovative landscape, leading to significant negative consequences including an exacerbation of environmental risks which threaten global food security. This thesis explores how exclusionary intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the context of the seed industry constrict innovation, evolutionary pathways, and opportunities for the implementation of sustainable agriculture methods. To overcome these barriers, the application of an open source framework to seed innovation, specifically through the platform of the Open Source Seed Initiative, is evaluated as a tool for enhancing innovative capacities in seed development while broadening the accessibility and growth of the plant genetic resource base. Using an open source framework alongside agroecological practices can enable the seed industry to shift toward a more decentralized structure, increasing opportunities for divergent plant evolutionary pathways in support of securing the future of food production