How plant variety protection fails to benefit breeders to the detriment of plant innovation in Kenya's maize seed sector

Abstract

The adoption by African countries of plant variety protection via the adherence to the union internationale pour la protection des obtentions végétales (UPOV) convention has received criticism because it may dispossess African farmers of their seeds. Little is known about the empirical workings of UPOV's plant breeders' rights (PBRs) regarding African food crops. I interviewed plant breeders and right holders in Kenya's maize seed sector. I found that few actors register maize PBRs because maize varieties are often hybrid and especially because alternative, more powerful forms of pseudointellectual property are available in Kenya. Accordingly, almost all of the few protected varieties have been developed by the same breeding team within the parastatal maize seed company.In short, the main problem I discovered with PBRs in the Kenyan maize seed sector is not that they dispossess farmers.It is rather that, although PBRs sometimes accrue to individual breeders, conservative employers like the parastatal do not regard breeders as creative innovators. They do not incentivise their employees and do not use PBRs to this effect. This is problematic in circumstances like Kenya's, where selected breeding teams and individuals are much more productive than others and where a quickly changing climate may require a higher varietal turnover of adapted, formally bred varieties.