Wider Context

The human population is expected to cross 10 billion by 2050. The biggest challenges facing humanity would be to provide food for this large population without exacerbating environmental and biodiversity crises. Therefore, sustainable agriculture is critical to achieving food and environmental security. Apart from food security, agriculture is also a means of employment in several low-income countries of the Global South. Modern agriculture has been impacted by industrialization, economic growth, commerce and markets. New biotechnological innovations, protected by patents, are being employed in agriculture to increase global food production. Increasing penetration of intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes in agriculture has meant that resources such as seed and germplasm that were earlier perceived to be part of common heritage have been subject to exclusion and privatization. This is particularly exacerbated in the case of agricultural microorganisms as TRIPS does not offer any patent excluding rights to member states for microorganisms. Advances in knowledge of the ecological position of microorganisms have led to increasing recognition of their potential as cost saving inputs to sustainable agriculture. This has implications in agriculture, as microbial resources can make important contributions to crop productivity. 

It is therefore important that barriers to easy and economically viable access of microbial resources in sustainable agriculture are addressed on a priority basis. To achieve this, the foundations on which microbial patent regime has been established must be analysed from an ecological and legal perspective. MICROB-COM has critically analysed this drawing from the increasing legal acceptance of earth jurisprudence and rights of nature.