http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/upov-welcomes-its-80th-member-nigeria.html
Following the announcement earlier this month that Nigeria would join the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), Nigeria’s accession to the treaty took effect today. This brings the UPOV membership to a total of 80: two intergovernmental organisations (the EU and the African Intellectual Property Organization, OAPI) and 78 countries.
Optimism about access to new plant varieties
| Photo by Ted GoldBerg |
Agriculture is very important for the Nigerian economy. The country was also a founding member of the WTO, and by extension the TRIPS Agreement, which came with the obligation in Article 27(3)(b) to provide effective IP protection for plant varieties.
Nigeria finally began taking steps to join UPOV in 2019. The government overhauled the legal framework to comply with the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention with the signing into law of the Plant Variety Protection Act 2021.
The Nigerian Government has expressed optimism that the new legislation and UPOV membership will incentivise investment in plant breeding – including through international collaboration – as well as to enhance access to foreign plant varieties.
The Acting Registrar of the Nigerian Plant Variety Protection Office, Mr Folarin Sunday Okelola said:
By 2050, the global population is projected to reach 9.1 billion, with Africa—particularly Nigeria—experiencing one of the highest growth rates. As food demand rises, providing farmers with access to high-quality seeds is crucial to ensuring food security. In acceding to UPOV, plant variety protection will drive the continuous development of improved, high-yielding, and climate-resilient crop varieties, benefiting both farmers and the broader agricultural and horticultural sectors.
Concerns about strong protection
Twenty-five years ago, there was considerable resistance to UPOV in Africa. For countries like Nigeria where a significant amount of food is produced by small-scale farmers, many have argued that strong plant variety protection would undermine farmers’ rights to save, replant, exchange, and sell farm-saved seeds. The adoption of the African Model Law on the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for Regulation of Access to Biological Resources in 2000 represented a rejection of the UPOV model in favour of protecting biodiversity and farmers’ rights. These concerns partly explain the slow uptake of ARIPO’s Arusha Protocol (see discussion in the IPKat here).
By contrast, the text of the Nigerian Plant Variety Protection Act 2021 hews closely to UPOV 1991 requirements and its template provisions. It has no special provisions about farmers, local communities, or traditional knowledge, aside from the usual exception in section 30 for farmers to use seeds “obtained by planting in his own holding” for re-sowing on their own farm. This right only applies to agricultural crops specified by the Minister (typically this would apply to important food and fodder/forage plants, such as wheat, certain grasses, and potatoes). This exception is subject to “reasonable limits” and “safeguarding of the legitimate interests of the holder of the breeder’s right.” In Europe, for example, this is interpreted to mean that farmers must pay reasonable remuneration for the use of farm saved seed (albeit with exceptions for small farmers).
Overall, Nigeria’s accession to the UPOV Convention reflects a continued trend in Africa away from previous agitation to protect the rights of communities and traditional knowledge, and towards a greater focus on securing investment and participation in international trade through conformity with the UPOV model of plant variety protection.
Earlier this month, UPOV Vice Secretary-General Yolanda Huerta reiterated that:
By joining UPOV, Nigeria will attract investment in plant breeding, expand access to improved plant varieties for all farmers, and harness PVP as a powerful catalyst for national development. This milestone is not just a win for Nigeria but for the entire global community. We look forward to witnessing the positive impact this will have on agricultural innovation and food security in the region.
We will see whether UPOV membership can deliver on these promises for Nigeria.
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