Plant Breeders' Rights for Food Security and Economic Development 2021

An effective Plant Breeder’s Rights System can ensure and improve food security in any country by stimulating the development of improved plant varieties. Farmers will get access to better varieties which means that their economic development will be enhanced. Do you want to learn what plant breeders’ rights in accordance with the UPOV Convention are and how a Plant Variety Protection System works? Then this course is of interest to you.

What will you learn?

The following subjects will be discussed during this course:

• Legal aspects – legal framework, requirements of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), patents, regulations relating to genetic resource use;
• Institutional aspects – procedures and administration, organisational setup, variety registration systems, collaboration and testing;
• Technical aspects – the principle of Distinctness,Uniformity and Stability (DUS), practical DUS-testing, UPOV guidelines, field testing, biochemical/ molecular techniques, statistics, data analysis, reporting, variety denomination;
• Exploitation of plant breeders rights – enforcing rights, royalty collection, farm saved seed.

Practical trainings on DUS testing form part of the course and visits will be made to seed certification services, breeding companies and the Aalsmeer flower auction.

Course programme in more detail

The protection of the rights of plant breeders is an important stimulus for the development of better plant varieties. The possibility to claim intellectual property rights on a variety gives a breeder the exclusive rights to exploit it and to prevent others from doing so illegally.

Many countries are therefore developing and implementing a legal framework for the protection of plant varieties within an intellectual property rights system. Besides developing legislation, the implementation of the Plant Breeders' Rights system has far-reaching consequences of a legal, institutional, technical, financial and commercial nature. In this course, participants will learn about these consequences, and about practical ways to implement new regulations.

How to register:

For who is this course?

Applicants should have a position in the plant variety protection system or have a position that will give them such responsibilities in the near future. Countries that have recently developed a plant variety protection law, or those that are currently in the process of developing such legislation, will be given priority. We also welcome employees of the legal departments in the agricultural industry. Applicants should have an agricultural or horticultural education at a minimum of BSc level or a legal education supplemented with practical experience in agriculture and horticulture. Participants are expected to be proficient in English.

To register for this course, please visit the following link.

The Application Procedure

1. Register for the course of your interest by clicking the ‘apply’ button on the webpage of this course. A registration form will open;
2. Fill in the required fields of the registration form. Please note to write your date of birth without a zero (e.g. 1-5-1980 instead of 01-05-1980);
3. Before you submit, check your details on the final page of the registration form;
4. After submitting, you will receive a confirmation email. Make sure to directly click on the link in the email to confirm your registration. Without your confirmation, your registration cannot be processed;
5. If you apply as an OKP or MSP-scholarship candidate, you will receive a registration letter for the scholarship at the beginning of the scholarship cycle.
6. If you apply as a self-funded participant: we will forward your request for acceptance to the course leader. This can take some time as it depends on the coordinators' schedule (1-3 weeks);
7. If you’re accepted into the course programme, we’ll send you an admission letter by e-mail;
8. You receive all required travel documents from us after you are selected for the scholarship (OKP/MSP-scholarship candidates) or when we’ve received your payment (self-funded participant).

Technology Requirements Online Learning

Minimum technical and software requirements for online learning courses are:

• Stable internet connection: required to access the online learning platform and assignments (at least 3G mobile network).
• Hardware requirement: acces to a laptop, smartphone, tablet or a personal computer with webcam and microphone.