Breeder's Rights: Protecting Innovation in Plant Varieties

A significant portion of the food that reaches our tables is the result of years of work by professionals committed to the improvement of plant varieties. Every tomato, lettuce, pepper, or cereal we consume is the product of years of effort to achieve enhanced nutritional qualities, improved flavors, and higher crop yields.

The work of those involved in developing new plant varieties is formally recognized when a new variety is registered and protection is sought through an international right known as the “breeder's right.”

Breeder's rights are granted to individuals and organizations — both public and private — that devote time, expertise, and substantial resources to creating plant varieties that did not previously exist.

These varieties are protected practically worldwide to foster innovation as well as agricultural biological diversity. This is achieved by creating a legal framework that incentivizes investment and facilitates the global exchange of genetic material, allowing individuals and institutions dedicated to plant breeding (breeders) to recover the resources they allocate to developing new plants and meeting the needs of farmers and consumers.

The mechanisms by which this system drives agricultural advancement can be described as follows.

Enhancing Biological Diversity

The international protection system has had a positive impact by encouraging plant breeding across an increasingly wide range of crops, contrary to the notion that such protection limits biodiversity.

The protection system does not predetermine which crops are valuable, as this is shaped by the demand of each country or region. This has led to an increase in the number of protected plant varieties from approximately 500 genera in 1975 to 900 in 1985. By 2008, this figure exceeded 2,500, indicating a greater contribution to biodiversity.

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) has recently reported that the number of applications for plant variety registration has exceeded 560,000 worldwide, considering the 80 member countries that are part of UPOV, which cover 99 nation-states.

Furthermore, it is important to recognize that innovation in plant breeding aims not only to increase productivity but also to enhance resistance to environmental and biological stresses (pests), as well as to improve product quality — factors that are key in the context of climate change.

Likewise, the availability of a wide diversity of improved varieties helps reduce genetic vulnerability associated with reliance on a single variety, since increased susceptibility to a pest could otherwise result in significant or total crop losses.

Boosting Creativity and Investment

The development of a new plant variety with improved characteristics is a long and complex process that can require up to 15 years of work, along with a substantial investment of both financial and human resources. Without effective protection, new plant varieties are easily copied or reproduced, which discourages innovation by preventing breeders from competing fairly in the market.

An effective protection system grants breeders exclusive rights over the reproduction and commercialization of their varieties, enabling them to recover long-term investments that often reach millions.

The international system of breeder protection has demonstrated its effectiveness by stimulating both the private and public sectors, expanding the diversity of breeding actors and strengthening overall plant breeding activity.

It is also important to clarify that this system does not apply to native, common-use, and open-access varieties.

Access to Foreign Genetic Resources and the 'Breeder's Exemption'

The international protection of plant varieties facilitates countries' access to innovations developed abroad, enriching their own genetic pools and breeding programs. Therefore, adherence to the international plant variety protection system signals to foreign breeders that their rights and interests will be safeguarded, thereby encouraging the prompt introduction of improved superior varieties into the country.

In this regard, the “breeder's exemption” is a crucial feature of the UPOV Convention, allowing the use of protected material without the need for authorization, provided it is for experimental purposes to create new varieties. This means that local breeders can use protected foreign varieties to develop their own adapted varieties, which boosts national programs.

An example of this occurred in Kenya, where a commercially viable bean variety ("Line 10") was developed from a variety introduced from the Netherlands ("Amy"). Similarly, in Korea, a protected tomato variety was successfully used in a breeding program.[1]

Benefits for Subsistence Farming

This international system contemplates important exceptions for developing countries. It is important to state that private acts and those without commercial purposes are not subject to breeder's rights. This ensures that subsistence farmers can reproduce protected varieties for their own consumption, allowing them access to improved crops without infringing the law.

Plant Varieties Registered in Mexico

Mexico has been a member of UPOV since 1997, adhering under the terms of the 1978 Act of this international organization. With the signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Mexico committed to adhering to the 1991 Act of UPOV in order to achieve harmonization among the three countries; however, Mexico has not yet completed its adhesion to this instrument.

The registration of plant varieties in our country is carried out by the National Service for Seed Inspection and Certification (SNICS), a decentralized agency of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

As of June 2025, there were 6,283 plant varieties registered in Mexico. Of these, 2,646 were registered solely under the National Catalog of Plant Varieties (CNVV) modality, 2,269 under the Breeder's Rights modality, and 1,368 under both.

According to SNICS, the existence of these more than 6,000 registered varieties “speaks of a system that promotes agricultural biodiversity.” Of these registered varieties, the majority correspond to maize, with 2,346 registrations (37% of the total), underscoring the importance of this crop to Mexican agriculture for both dietary and cultural reasons.

Finally, it is worth noting that among the main applicants for plant variety protection in Mexico, public research institutions such as the National Institute of Forestry, Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIFAP) stand out, with 810 registrations. Likewise, both national and international companies are active participants in the system.

This combination of public and private entities registering plant varieties is characteristic in countries that have adhered to the international system of breeder protection, reflecting both the strength of the system itself and the broad-based benefits it delivers to agriculture at all levels.

[1] Examples provided by Dr. Rolf Jördens, Deputy Secretary General of UPOV.