Guest Post: The Intellectual Property in our food
by Douglas T. Nelson
How many times have you sat down for dinner and thought about intellectual property rights (IP)? Never, probably. But the food you eat contains critical IP which is as important to food as IP is to pharmaceuticals and technology products.
The challenge is that in an increasingly metropolitan world in which we live, most of us don’t pause to think about the fresh ingredients we enjoy that has come from the fields to the grocery store to the table.
Read MoreA Filipino Mother and Farmer Wants to Place GM Eggplant on Her Table
by Rosalie Ellasus
Do judges know better than mothers what their children should eat?
In the Philippines, apparently they do. Or at least they think they do.
Last month, my country’s Court of Appeals stopped field tests on genetically modified eggplants—crops that I would happily feed my own children and grandchildren.
We’ve been eating GM crops for years. I grow them on my farm in San Jacinto during the dry season. They’re such excellent crops that I plant them on the 12 hectares that I own and also rent an additional 3.5 hectares.
Read MoreMy food, your food, our food
For the past few years, the global debate has intensified around food security. It’s become part of the international policy arena with the term used to focus attention on accelerating global food production to feed an expected 2 billion more people taking the total to 9 billion by 2050.
A tall order judging by recent comments from The Mary Robinson Foundation at a Dublin conference in mid-April in which the advocacy group presented research on the challenges linked to feeding the world due to climate change. They claim agricultural production will need to increase by 60% just to meet the growing demand between now and 2050.
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