Publisher's Synopsis
In today's world, access to food is highly, unacceptably uneven. There is massive overproduction and over-consumption, and yet millions experience scarcity and hunger. This book looks at some of the forces and rules shaping the food system and who has control over it. In particular, it focuses on rules on intellectual property - for example patents, plant breeders' rights, trademarks and copyright - and their relations to other rules on biodiversity, an essential requirement for food security. It looks through the lens of intellectual property (IP) at the future control of food and farming, because rules on IP are central to struggles over the distribution of wealth and power in the 21st century. This book is a guide to both the negotiations and these new global rules. At stake are the livelihoods of 2.5 billion people still directly dependent on agriculture and the long-term food security of us all. The IP regime, a new factor in many countries, along with a changing trade regime and new agreements on biodiversity, will help shape the kind of agricultural development in the future. It may include most of these 2.5 billion people, or it may exclude them. Either way their livelihoods will be affected. Moreover, all of us will be affected by the way these rules are written, since they will also help shape the food system, the kind of products it produces and the structures through which it delivers them.
