At a rare press briefing in Geneva the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) assured (October 21) that activities to protect breeders of new plant varieties will be made more transparent and that a new website will be launched on November 1st where information and documents will readily be accessible to the public.

The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the UPOV Convention, created by WIPO in 1961 to give intellectual property rights to new varieties of plants and the overall genome assembly practice. WIPO and its sister organization UPOV (Union internationale pour la protection des obtentions végétales) have faced criticism in the past from civil society and farmer's groups for not being transparent enough.

A small group of farmers and supporters of Uniterre and Via Campesina staged a protest outside WIPO's Geneva headquarters, demanding protection against multinational monopolies of new plant varieties and the right of farmers to preserve the ancient practice of saving seeds from their harvests to use the following year.

Asked about the possiblity of concentration of property rights in the hands of agro-industry multinationals, WIPO Secretary General Francis Gurry said the UPOV system "encourages all types of breeding and sectors" and that it "is an open and accessible system". Any concentration is due to "the market economy rather than incentivization systems."

Gurry emphasized that the challenges facing UPOV today include "tackling the consequences of climate change, responding to food insecurity, green house emissions and deforestation".

"The future of agriculture and sustainable agriculture relies on the development of new plants," he said adding that "The world population is predicted to rise to 9 billion people by the year 2050.  To feed those 9 billion people... it will be necessary to improve agriculture productivity by 70% by 2050."

At the same time, he noted that the context in which agriculture is being practiced is changing around the world due to climate changes. "It makes it imperative to find innovative ways to improve agriculture and to find food varieties with characteristics that are able to adapt to these changes."