THE WORLDS CROP GENETIC-RESOURCES AND THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS FARMERS

Farmer or folk crop varieties developed over many generations by indig enous farmers are an important component of global crop genetic resour ces for use by both industrial and indigenous agriculture. Currently t here is a debate between advocates of indigenous farmers' rights in th eir folk varieties and the dominant world system, which vests intellec tual property rights to crop genetic resources only in users of those resources for industrial agriculture. While indigenous peoples at the individual and group levels do have a broad range of intellectual prop erty rights in their folk varieties, they define and use them differen tly than does the industrial world. Therefore, industrial-world intell ectual propery rights mechanisms are generally inappropriate for prote cting the intellectual property rights of indigenous farmers, but some could be used effectively. To meet indigenous farmers' need for prote ction, new approaches are being developed that embed indigenous farmer s' rights in folk varieties in cultural, human, and environmental righ ts. More research on the cultural, social, and agronomic roles of folk varieties, ongoing negotiation of the meaning of key concepts such as ''crop genetic resources,'' ''rights,'' and ''indigenous,'' and an em phasis on a common goal of sustainability will help to resolve the deb ate.