Brownbagging (agriculture)

Brownbagging or brown-bagging is the agricultural practice of planting, or especially selling, seed saved from the farmers own harvest, as opposed to buying new seed from a seed company.^[1]

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While saving seed and even exchanging seed with other farmers for biodiversity purposes has been a traditional practice, these practices have become illegal for the many plant varieties are patented or otherwise owned by some entity (often a corporation).^[1] Under Article 28 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement), "planting, harvesting, saving, re-planting, and exchanging seeds of patented plants, or of plants containing patented cells and genes, constitutes use" and is prohibited by the intellectual property laws of signatory states.^[1]

Significantly, farmers in developing countries are particularly affected by prohibitions on brown-bagging. There are some protections for re-use, called "farmer's privilege", in the 1991 International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV Convention), but seed exchange remains prohibited.^[1]

In the United States, by contrast, the farmer's privilege is considered protected by the Plant Variety Protection Act and by case law stemming from Asgrow Seed v. Winterboer. American farmers may sell seed up to the amount saved for replanting their own acreage.^[2]

Diamond v. Chakrabarty established that companies may obtain patents for lifeforms. J.E.M. Ag Supply v. Pioneer established that brownbagging is a patent violation.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Kerstin Mechlem and Terry Raney (2007). "Agricultural Technology and the Right to Food", in Francesco Francioni: Biotechnologies and International Human Rights. Hart Publishing, 156. ISBN 1841137030.
^ The Crucible II Group (2001). Seeding Solutions. IPGRI. ISBN 9290434996.