Intellectual Property, Agrobiodiversity and Gender Considerations Issues and Case Studies from the Andean and South Asian Regions

Women form an integral part of agriculture in the developing world, as farmers, as custodians and users of traditional knowledge and as seed managers. All of these roles and responsibilities in various ways ensure rural food security and maintenance of agricultural biodiversity. In fact, informal exchange of knowledge and seed sharing is central to farming practices in the developing world. The World Trade Organization's intellectual property agreement (TRIPS) and other bilateral and regional trade agreements may impact these practices by introducing monopolistic and exclusive rights regimes into the area of plants and plant varieties (including seeds). In this context, among the major groups aff ected by these changes are women farmers. Expansive intellectual property rights (IPR) with limited safeguards for plant varieties and genetic resources can potentially aff ect women's reproductive health, agriculture, food security and traditional knowledge in health care and medicines. Privatization of biological resources directly aff ects women, who lack resources to purchase them and are left relying on shrinking and increasingly degraded common property resources. Moreover, intellectual property rights that further incentivize privatization of plant and food can dilute gender roles and responsibilities and potentially impact food security, biodiversity and have economic impacts over rural livelihoods. As a result, creating gender specifi c safeguards with respect to plant rights will result not only in greater security for women, but will also ensure maintenance of agricultural biodiversity and continued food security. The studies conducted in the Andean and South Asian region set out to explore these linkages and provide an understanding on the implications of these linkages over roles and responsibilities of women farmers. They also discuss if changes in these roles could potentially have an impact over biodiversity and food security. These studies use farming communities, two in each region, where women play major roles related to farming, as case studies to establish the linkages and the implications. The Jambi Kiwa association (Ecuador) and the Potato Park (Peru) in the Andean Region were studied. In the South Asian region, the dryland deccan plateau of Parvathapur and Enkepally (India) and the hilly region of Chaur and Begnas (Nepal) were studied. The Andean study analyzes the complex connections that exist between intellectual property, small farming, agrosystems and gender issues that exist at a broader, multilateral level. It further discusses the regional laws to help analyze the linkages and impacts. It draws some of its arguments from analyzing the …