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.

Farmers in Asia and around the globe constantly face new challenges to bring food, fuel, and fiber to a growing population. As the number of people increase and the amount of arable land decreases, producing enough food has become increasingly challenging. Innovation with strong IP protection is critical to ensuring we continue to enjoy food on the table. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that between 20 and 40% of the world’s crop production is lost annually to weeds, pests, and diseases. Innovation is necessary  to provide farmers with new tools to combat these growing challenges, and developing these new tools for farmers requires an upfront investment in research, time, and, of course, money. So the protection of IP remains vital to the scientists and entrepreneurs who invest decades of R&D and significant resources developing solutions to agricultural problems.

Protecting IP begins with a government commitment to innovation. Studies have shown that countries with stronger IP protection produce more food. Let’s look at the regulatory data that crop protection companies must generate and submit to national authorities to be permitted to market their products to farmers using Brazil and India as examples. Brazil has 10-year protection of regulatory data in place while India currently has none. Companies are required to submit regulatory data to national authorities to demonstrate they are safe and efficacious and this data is protected against competitors copying or using it during this period. .

In the past five years, Brazil has yielded over twice the amount of cotton per acre as India despite the fact that India dedicates eight to 10 times more land to cotton production. But this just scratches the surface. Around the world, countries with more robust IP rights have greater access to innovative agricultural technologies, see greater crop yields, and become more competitive globally. Indeed, IP is crucial to bringing food to your table each and every day through private sector investment in R&D and subsequent advances in modern agriculture. And this investment isn’t small.  Average R&D costs for each active chemical ingredient approved by a national authority in the US and EU has climbed from $152 million in 1995 to $256 million in 2008.

And to ensure this investment continues, greater works needs to be done on eradicating counterfeiters.  CropLife International and CropLife Asia are strongly involved in anti-counterfeiting efforts with law enforcement for more effective measures to protect farmers and the environment from the potential risks of illegal pesticides. Enforcement of IP by police, customs and regulators and more transparency in the international trade of pesticides is essential to sustain product innovation and ensure that pesticides are traded and used in a responsible manner.

Groundbreaking technologies have been essential in facing the monumental changes that have shaped agriculture over the past century, and will continue to influence how food is grown across the globe. Without strict IP enforcement, the development of some of the world’s most valuable innovations would not be possible.

Douglas T. Nelson is Senior Advisor for Trade, Intellectual Property & Strategic Issues at CropLife America.

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.

I’ve also grown eggplants. They’re the leading vegetable crop in the Philippines, where we call them talong. They come in many shapes and colors, from elongated or rounded to purple, violet, or green. Some even have white stripes.

Mothers like me can cook talong a hundred different ways, but one of everybody’s favorite dishes is called pinakbet. Talong is a main ingredient, along with other vegetables as well as fish or shrimp, all stirred together in a hot and delicious mix.

If you were to ask Filipinos to pick their favorite Filipino plate, pinakbet probably would win the contest.

I’m very concerned that the judges have ruled against a technology that would make it easier for farmers to grow talong and mothers to feed it to their children.

If their decision had been based in sound scientific reasoning, then it would make sense and be accepted. Farmers don’t want to hurt the environment and mothers don’t want to feed harmful food to their children.

But the ruling had nothing to do with science. The judges simply reacted to the lies of activist groups such as Greenpeace, whose well-fed leaders never have to wonder about their next meal.

Biotechnology is widely accepted around the world, where farmers have harvested more than 3.5 billion acres of it over the last 20 years.

A few of those acres have been mine. I started growing GM crops shortly after the death of my husband. They helped me get my life back together and gave me the financial means to send my children to school.

They also put food on the table. I mean this both figuratively and literally because in my home we eat what we grow—and our GM corn uses exactly the same pest-fighting technology that the Court of Appeals just rejected for talong.

This is ridiculous. How can a trait be acceptable in one crop but not in another?

My personal experience demonstrates what scientists all over the world have said: GM crops are a safe and proven option. That’s what the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, and many other groups have proclaimed, along with the National Academy of Science of Technology here in the Philippines.

One of the latest voices to endorse GM food is Michael Purugganan, a Filipino who is the dean of science at New York University, a preeminent university in the United States.

“When it comes to GM technology, [critics] ignore the overwhelming scientific consensus on the safety of GMO crops,” he wrote in GMA News Online, responding to last month’s ruling. “Meanwhile, here in the U.S., I will eat GMO tortilla chips and eat GMO tofu. I hope to one day taste GMO pinakbet. And I do so fully aware that I have nothing to worry about.”

I’ll take it a step further. Biotech crops aren’t merely just okay to eat. They’re actually better than non-biotech crops. They allow us to grow more food on less land, making them tools of conservation and sustainable agriculture. They also improve the health of farmers because they don’t require additional pesticide applications, which can be hazardous to the people who apply them directly to crops.

With its unfortunate decision, the Court of Appeals has hurt the international reputation of the Philippines, which now may be viewed as a foe of progress and technology. More importantly, it has hurt the prospects of ordinary Filipinos, from farmers who struggle to make a living to mothers who simply want safe and affordable ways to feed their children.

Rosalie Ellasus is a first-generation farmer, growing corn and rice in San Jacinto, Philippines.  Rosalie allows her farm to be used as a demonstration plot for smallholder farmers to visit and learn from.  She is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network