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The various articles have highlighted the complexity of intellectual property on plants, its instability, its contradictions, its past and potential developments, and challenges. One thing is certain, however: since 1980, the field of patents on living organisms has expanded and deepened considerably. It now covers all living organisms, including the human species (see p.16). Subject […]

  Almost seven years have passed since the publication of our issue « Saving cultivated biodiversity » (No. 141, October 2016). Since then, the degradation of biodiversity, i.e. the entire diversity of living organisms, has accelerated, as evidenced by recent reports from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (better known by its acronym IPBES), […]

  The collapse of biodiversity (both wild and cultivated) is essentially due to human activities. Among these, industrial agriculture, with its range of fertilisers, pesticides and other harmful practices, plays a key role.   The collapse of biodiversity was once again highlighted at the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) at the Convention on Biological […]

Patents and plant breeders’ rights (PBR) are two types of intellectual property right. Both have a major impact on both cultivated and wild biodiversity. Certain intellectual property rights (IPRs) affect cultivated biodiversity, agriculture, but also wild biodiversity, which provides genetic resources [1] such as stevia or the neem tree [2]. These are patents and, for plant crops, […]

  The rampant industrialisation of our environment over the past century has led to the disappearance of many living species. This sixth mass extinction is the first one specifically attributed to human action. In the face of this observation, several political and scientific approaches have been proposed, which do not tackle the causes but try […]

Precision agriculture, the new avatar of agribusiness, invests in robotics, digital technology and genetics [1]. This technological overkill is presented as a solution to many of the failures of industrial agriculture. In the livestock sector, will it allow, as it is often put forward, to improve the living conditions of animals ? hors note that the effectiveness […]

For several decades we have been witnessing a drastic reduction in the autonomy of farmers, who have become mere labourers. Farmers may soon have to deal with the arrival of GMO animals, which will certainly reinforce this phenomenon. The stranglehold of a few companies on the animal production chain has become the norm, at least […]

In 2019, in France, 1,865,403 animals were used for experimental purposes [1]. This number of animals was fairly stable between 2015 (414,164 of which 89,708 with a damaging phenotype) and 2017 (428,606 of which 53,076 with a damaging phenotype), but a peak was observed in 2018 : 484,463 animals of which 56,412 with a damaging phenotype ; of […]

For some European animal breeding industries, new genetic modification techniques can contribute to a sustainable food system. But, they say, their use must be done with great care, so as not to jeopardise food safety and animal health and welfare. This precaution is coupled with a call for « a legal framework on imports to ensure […]