Research On The Legal Protection Of Farmer’s Privilege

Seeds have everything to do with the development of agriculture, and it’s a long-term custom for farmers to reserve seeds for future plantation and cultivation. However, with the application of biological breeding and generic engineering in plant breeding, the UPOV 1978 Convention and the UPOV 1991 Convention are made by the developed countries represented by the United States and the European Union to strengthen the control over the farmer’s privilege to reserve seeds for planting. That is to say, the farmer’s privilege to reserve seeds for planting is limited. China is a super agricultural country with a number of 900 million farmers. If their right to reserve seeds for planting is forcibly restricted, the farmer’s survival will face a severe problem. This article aims to argue that it is necessary to guarantee the fanner’s privilege to reserve seeds for planting. This article analyzes how the developed countries use the FDI and "terminator technology" to control developing counties, and it also analyzes the value of setting the rights of peasants’reserving seeds for planting in terms of its effects on the profit of the breeding people and the fanners. At present, there is no explicit definition of the farmer’s privilege to reserve seeds for planting in China. Most studies in China focus on the protection of variety rights of the breeders rather than the farmer’s privilege to reserve seeds for planting, and some relative studies are merely confined to translations of provisions and documents made by the United States or the European Union. This article will discuss the current situation in international legislation and their patterns in the United States, the European Union and India. This article intends to find out some hidden provisions in the current legal text in our country and to analyze why they are hidden. It concludes that the insufficiency of the protection of variety rights leads to, on the one hand, the lack of considerations of establishing laws to protect the farmer’s privilege to reserve seeds for planting, and on the other hand, the coarsening of its legal protection. So, in the face of many developed countries protecting breeding people’s property right, we should notice this tendency and be aware of the effect it will have on the agriculture in our country. After the previous analysis, this article tries to propose some legislative recommendations for strengthening the farmer’s privilege to reserve seeds for planting.