Much of our agricultural production today depends on the genius of science, including genetic breeding. The ownership of genetically modified products is a much more crucial issue as a consequence of globalization. Increasingly, agriculture has become a multibillion dollar global industry, and the stakes that go with intellectual property rights have exploded as a result. Not surprisingly, new agricultural technologies, including seed varieties, are being defined increasingly as matters of private ownership and corporate gain than as public goods. The issue of who has ownership and how far ownership extends will, I believe, define much of the international agricultural debate well into the next century.
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