Farmers' Rights and Digital Sequenced Information: A Synthesis

This paper provides a synthesis of the intersection of digital sequence information (DSI) and Farmers’ Rights. It explains what DSI is, why it is important in the context of the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) and provides an overview of key recent policy developments. Drawing on the analytical framework developed by Andersen (2016, 2017) that uses the concepts of “stewardship” and “ownership” to explain different approaches and rifts related to agrobiodiversity management (see Box 1), a focus is placed on how DSI could catalyze opportunities for a stewardship approach that recognizes PGRFA as a public good. An analysis is provided of the different ways in which DSI intersect with Farmers’ Rights in relation to the protection of traditional knowledge, benefit sharing, participation in decision-making, and Farmers’ Rights to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed, and implications for adopting a stewardship or ownership approach. The paper concludes with a proposed agenda for further work.