Ahead of MEPs vote today, Copa and Cogeca sent a letter to President of European Parliaments political group today opposing the use of patents in the EU agriculture breeding sector, warning it poses a major risk to European agriculture.

Copa-Cogeca Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen said “Copa and Cogeca do not believe that using patents in the EU agriculture breeding sector is the right instrument to use vis-à-vis intellectual property rights. Indeed, all genes known by nature and which nature creates cannot be considered as inventions. Patents in fact hinder the work of farmers and breeders who have had free access to the gene pools of previous generations under the EU plant variety rights convention (UPOV). Patenting seeds will cause fewer varieties to be on the market and create extra costs. It threatens biodiversity by limiting the number of breeders and breeding programmes. It also hinders innovation as a lot of money is wasted by companies on high legal fees associated with patents and less on research and development. Many Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are likely to be forced out of business, leading to further consolidation and/or reduced innovation in plant breeding and creating stronger dependency on the bigger seed companies”

“Copa and Cogeca therefore believe that the plant variety system (UPOV) which helps breeders and farmers to create new varieties suited to local conditions is a better instrument to use in the EU agriculture sector”, he concluded.