Says Jayati Ghosh: The according of Intellectual property Rights for new plant varieties is supposed to encourage investment in research. But it ends up handing over rights that were previously vested in cultivators , to breeders and large companies, whose only motivation is profit. This is not just a problem for farmers who have to pay more for seeds and may no longer be able to use part of their own harvest for seeds in future.

Patents are awarded according to who files for a patent first, rather than who actually had the knowledge or made the invention. Hence there is tremendous scope for intellectual bio-piracy and theft, especially from the knowledge of indigenous communities that has often been handed down over generations.

The patents that were filed in the US , on several properties of the Neem and Turmeric plants that have been well known in India for centuries , are cases in point. Hence, research agendas move away from the grasp of domestic producers. They get increasingly determined by the profit motive rather than the social need , and new technologies and their products tend to be priced out of reach of the poor people across the world.