This history of the scientific and commercial lines of plant development in the United States traces the transformation of the seed from a public good produced and reproduced by farmers into a commodity controlled by businesses and corporations divorced from the uses of their product.

Biotechnology is the umbrella term that covers various techniques to restore ecological balance. It stands on the understanding of molecular basis of cell functions and our ability to after cell functions to produce products required by the society.

This book examines the contribution which intellectual property rights can make in the struggle for food security in developing countries. The book consists of 11 chapters. Chapter 1 locates intellectual property rights within the armoury of food security policies. Chapter 2 deals with definitional issues and examines the role of intellectual property rights in incentivizing agricultural research and development. Chapter 3 examines the international landscape of intellectual property and the approaches taken to the relationship between intellectual property rights, agricultural biotechnology, access to biological resources, food security and globalization which are taken by the WTO, FAO, CBD and WIPO among the various international and development agencies. Plant variety rights (PVRs) are a specially created form of intellectual property right originally minted to encourage agricultural innovation and Chapter 4 examines the effectiveness of PVRs in a food security context. Agricultural innovation is in part dependent upon access of researchers to the genetic resources of the biodiverse countries of the South. Chapter 5 considers the attempts to construct an international regime to secure this access. The important role of traditional farmers in preserving landraces and cultivars from which improvements can be derived has generated for a call for the recognition of farmers' rights, and this is examined in Chapter 6 together with agitation for the protection of the traditional knowledge which often informs access to the useful genetic resources. Chapter 7 examines the intellectual property implications of the use of genetically modified (GM) crops as a technological solution to food insecurity. The protection of GM crops is achieved through patent protection and Chapter 9 looks at the competition law implications of patent licensing, patent pools and patent thickets. An old intellectual property device that underpinned the commercial development of European agricultural marketing is the geographical indication, and Chapter 8 examines the contribution it might make to achieving food security. Returning to the theme of the role of intellectual property law in incentivizing innovation, Chapter 10 examines its role in promoting agricultural research. The concluding chapter proposes a number of recommendations for action in deploying intellectual property law in the struggle for food security.

In the opening session the Chairman of the Seminar underlined the important role of the permanent monitoring panels with respect to the 15 planetary emergencies. A special session of the Seminar was devoted to reporting on the activity of these panels. Short papers, abstracts and transparencies in the opening session introduced the subjects of the contributions: 'Climatology and El Nino' (Nadia Pinardi, Neville Nicholls, Congbin Fu, Akimasa Sumi, William Sprigg and Llowell Wood) and 'Desertification' (Douglas Johnson, Xinmin Liu, Lennart Olsson and Norman Rosenberg). Contributions on 'Medicine & Biotechnologies' were presented by Paul Brown, Robert Will, Benardino Ghetti and Guy de The. The Theme 'Defence Against Cosmic Objects' was covered by Walter Huebner, John Remo and William Bottke; 'Water and Pollution' by Herman Bouwer, Gennady Palshin, David Rice and Paolo Ricci; and problems centered upon 'Food' by Carlo Lerici and Silvia Franceschi, 'Proliferation and Weapons of Mass Destruction' was discussed by Henning Wegener, Andrei Piontkovski, Reiner Huber, Tony Mason, Willis Stanley, Gregory Canavan and Povl Olgaard; 'Limits of Development' by Hilmar Schubert and Leonardas Kairiukstis; and 'Energy' by Stanislav Subbotin, Andrei Gagarinski and Eugeni Velikhov. T D Lee closed the Seminar by emphasizing the link between basic science and planetary emergencies.

This report has been prepared by the International Labour Office as the basis for discussions at the Tripartite Meeting on Technology and Employment in the Food and Drink Industries. It examines recent developments in the food and drink industries and new technology that has been adopted in these industries with a view to illustrating their impact on employment and working conditions.