Argentina: Enhancing breeders’ IPR by use of molecular markers is a reality

This week, the Argentina Seed National Institute (INASE as its Spanish acronym) released the Order 109/2018 that improves controls over grain sold by farmers in order to preserve the Intellectual Property Rights of breeders.

Until this season, the INASE controlled the grain brought to a warehouse in order to detect technologies protected by patents, for example, the Intacta trait by Monsanto. “This new order marks a transition between the use of the molecular technologies to detect traits, to identifying the germplasm”, the official from INASE Mariano Petruzela explained to www.eFarmNewsAr.com.

Currently, the INASE is working on the mapping around a thousand soybean varieties, a half of them currently in use by Argentinean farmers. Each variety is mapped and its SNP’s described to use them later as identifiers of the germplasm.

The lack of strict controls and a permeable law interpretation about the “farmer privilege” (Seed Act 20,247) have conducted to the fact that less than 20% of soybean seed used in Argentina is certificated. The other 80% is composed of “brown bag” (illegal) and “saved seed” according to a lax interpretation of the farmer’s privilege.

A few seasons ago, the INASE implemented the mandatory declaration of the varieties used by farmers and its origin, as the first step to improve the use of legal seed. “The idea is crossing the declaration with the germplasm identification in the discharge point”, Petruzela told www.eFarmNewsAr.com.

Currently, the register of a new variety by the breeder is made trough phenotypic or morphologic traits; when the molecular identification is finished, a new INASE’s order will regulate the varieties registration by its DNA. Also, this system will permit identify how close is one variety respect others. Also, this system will be put into force for wheat and cotton.