Marcel Bruins, the editorial director for European Seed, sat down with Dr. Edgar Krieger, secretary general of CIOPORA, at the UPOV 2022 meetings in October to talk about the important documents being presented, specifically, the explanatory note on essentially derived varieties (EDVs).
“What is at stake on EDVs? I do not dare to say the future of conventional breeding is at stake,” said Krieger. “Breeders develop a lot of time, energy and resources into breeding conventionally by crossing and selection, new varieties and because of the breeders exemption, they can be used for further breeding.”
Many companies are now coming up with new breeding techniques, and if they develop new varieties by using one of these protected conventional varieties, they can do it in a very short period of time and can change the varieties really quickly and significantly.
As an example, if a breeder used a variety that took 10-12 years to create and added a gene into the variety with gene editing, that new variety can be marketed without paying financial recognition to the original breeder.
Krieger said unless these varieties are considered EDVs, this is a possibility that can happen.
“The concept was introduced in 1991, exactly for the purpose of protecting conventional breeders for these situations,” he explained. “The EDV concept is developed exactly as a corrective of the breeder’s exemption. It must be interpreted in a sufficiently broad way.”
To hear more about EDVs, what is at stake and more, watch the interview above.
