About Plant Breeders Rights

Australia was amongst the last of the developed economies to introduce legislation to protect the intellectual property rights of plant breeders. The eventual introduction in 1994 of an effective Australian Plant Breeder's Rights (PBR) Act has encouraged private investment.

The horticulture, floriculture, pasture seed and tropical crops sectors were quick to access elite international germplasm whose owners had hitherto declined Australian opportunities because of a lack of protection for their property rights. These rights are recognised internationally under the UPOV Treaty conventions, of which Australia is now a signatory. The benefits from this private investment have spread across all sectors of these industries, as seen by the range and choice of products now readily.

For more information on Plant Breeders Rights, click here.

Progress in attracting private investment to replace taxpayer funded breeding in the broad-acre open-pollinated crops such as wheat and barley has been much slower. Even so, momentum for change is building quickly, especially with the major funder of wheat and barley breeding, the Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC) announcing in 1999 that as a result of a series of review of the sector, it would not continue supporting the traditional plant variety breeding agencies beyond 2005. With this decision, the entry of new commercially focused and internationally connected operators such as LongReach was inevitable.

For more information on GRDC reviews of the performance of the Australian cereal-breeding sector, click here.

Sector consolidation is now accelerating and the flow into Australia of elite proprietary genetic material with a wide spectrum of useful disease resistance and quality traits has been at unprecedented levels since 2001.

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