The plant variety protection law in Malaysia: issues on protection of farmers' rights

The availability of a wide diversity of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture is necessary to ensure continuous food production and food security. However, the expansion of intellectual property protection into agricultural field has raised concerns as to its impact on farmers’ traditional agricultural practises and the recognition of farming communities’ efforts in development and conservation of plant varieties. This paper serves as an exploratory study on few issues relating to farmers in Malaysia, the Farmers’ Rights concept and plant variety rights in Malaysia. The paper provides a brief review on the current Malaysian plant variety law and suggests further in depth study to identify gaps in the current legislation in realising the four core components of the Farmers’ Rights concept.