Reimagining the relationship between food sovereignty and intellectual property for plants: Lessons from Ecuador and Nepal

Abstract

The concept of food sovereignty is regularly conceived as one side of a binary. Thus, scholars frequently juxtapose food sovereignty-as embodied in small-scale, customary, or peasant agriculture-against large-scale, industrial, and global modes of food production. The logic of this dichotomy suggests that the realization of food sovereignty is incompatible with the recognition of intellectual property for plants and seeds. In contrast, we argue that food sovereignty and intellectual property are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts. Instead, food sovereignty activists and lawmakers alike are reimagining intellectual property to move beyond a focus on exclusive ownership, thus deploying it in novel ways.Our argument draws on extensive fieldwork, based on which we relate the experiences of two case study countries, namely Ecuador and Nepal. We describe how these countries recently embedded rights related to food sovereignty in reformed constitutional frameworks. We also evaluate how these novel constitutional food sovereignty rights shaped the making of other national laws in Ecuador and Nepal, including frameworks whose purpose is to protect plant varieties as intellectual property. Throughout the article, we demonstrate that countries can both promote food sovereignty and protect plant varieties as intellectual property. One way that governments can achieve this goal is to ensure that all relevant laws and policies-including those which relate to ---

The Sustainable Development of Forest Food

“…As Johansson et al [125] discussed, women professionals face challenges in the male-dominated field of forestry. Jefferson and Adhikari [126] thought governments should promote food sovereignty and protect plant varieties as intellectual property. Moreno-Calles et al [127] thought the development of forestry should consider forestry and agricultural diversity, soil, water, cultural richness, food sovereignty, and sustainable ecosystem management.…”

Rethinking the Alternatives: Food Sovereignty as a Prerequisite for Sustainable Food Security

“…Along this line, food sovereignty resists laws and policies that promote the appropriation of food and agriculture knowledge and intellectual property and aims to protect farmers' knowledge and their right to land and genetic resources (Felicien et al 2020) alongside condemning food dumping and inappropriate food aid (Carlile et al 2021;LvC 2003). The food sovereignty movement contends that the latter practices harm smallholder agriculture's social and economic resilience (De Schutter 2011) and genetic and agro-diversity (Jefferson and Adhikari 2019). De Schutter (2011) posits that destroying small-scale agriculture-which feeds a significant portion of the population, especially in the global south (Gomez y Paloma et al 2020;McMichael 2014), will exacerbate rather than solve hunger problems.…”

Intellectual Property: Legal Provisions and Legal Cases in Nepal

“…Food sovereignty and intellectual property are not necessarily mutually exclusive notions, according to Jefferson and Adhikari (2019). Instead, advocates for food sovereignty and policymakers are reinventing intellectual property to go beyond a concentration on exclusive ownership and use it in creative ways.…”