“Fair and equitable benefit-sharing” is one of the objectives of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. In essence, benefit-sharing holds that countries, farmers, and indigenous communities that grant access to their plant genetic resources and/or traditional knowledge should share in the benefits that users derive from these resources. But what exactly is understood by “fair” and “equitable” in this context? Neither term is defined in the international treaties. A complicating factor, furthermore, is that different motivations and perspectives exist with respect to the notion of benefit-sharing itself. This paper looks at six different approaches to benefit-sharing that can be extracted from the current debates on “Access and Benefit-Sharing.” These approaches form the basis of a philosophical reflection in which the different connotations of “fair and equitable” are considered, by analyzing the main principles of justice involved. Finally, the various principles are brought together in order to draw some conclusions as to how a fair and equitable benefit-sharing mechanism might best be realized. This results in several recommendations for policymakers.

Over the last few decades, there has been a growing appreciation of crop varieties developed by local farmers, commonly referred to as farmers’ varieties. These varieties often have attractive characteristics for both producers and consumers, such as adaptability to harsh environmental conditions and high nutritional values. Yet they are usually not sold in formal markets, and tend to be limited to farmers’ seed systems. This is partially due to national seed laws that, in an effort to guarantee good quality seed of uniform and stable varieties, create obstacles for farmers’ varieties to reach the market. This article describes the experiences of four countries—Bolivia, Laos, Nepal and Zimbabwe—that are developing alternative variety registration systems for farmers’ varieties. Most of these cases have never been documented before. The cases present the main drivers behind and approaches to the registration of farmers’ varieties in different legal contexts and at different stages of development. We conclude that farmers’ variety registration systems can generate benefits including faster and cheaper variety releases, improved farmer incomes, and a larger diversity of well-adapted varieties in the market—but some important issues are still to be resolved.

Seed is an essential start of any crop production. Seed, as both botanical seed and vegetive planting materials, is thus a very important component of agricultural livelihoods in food, ornamental, and industrial value chains, of local and global food security, and a determinant of sustainability. All farmers need good seed, irrespective of the farming system and markets that they supply. Seed qualities, in terms of germination/vigour, health, and genetic content, are a concern of all farmers. Farmers have various ways to access seeds. With time, the diversity of farmers’ and formal seed systems have become increasingly refined and complex. Given the importance of seed, not just for farmers but for society at large, seeds have become subject to an increasing number of regulations that pursue different policy objectives. Some have been intentionally developed to regulate seed systems themselves, while others impact them as a side effect. Various components of different policies, regulations and outcomes, their interactions and apparent dilemmas and inconsistencies are discussed to highlight the significance of seeds and to illustrate the importance for policymakers and regulators to carefully phrase rules and be sensitive toward the possible unintended effects of their actions. This particularly relates to seed marketing regulations, intellectual property and farmers’ rights, and biodiversity and biosafety rules. A general conclusion is that rules and regulations need to respond to evolving technical and socio-economic developments. Since seed systems differ widely and operate side by side, regulating a particular system may negatively impact others. The challenge for policymakers is to create policies and regulations that support both formal and farmers’ seed systems where they are most effective while minimalising negative consequences for breeding, selection, and seed production in either system. Several suggestions and recommendations for how to do so are provided in this special issue.

Over the last few decades, the number of patents on plants and plant parts has greatly increased in various parts of the world. Most research, however, has focused exclusively on developed countries—the United States and European Union states in particular—while little is known about the extent to which plants are being patented in other parts of the world. This article aims to fill this information gap by providing an overview of the status of patenting plants in the developing countries and emerging economies of the Global South. The research is based on the analysis of legal provisions, patentability guidelines, court decisions (where they exist) and a sample of patents granted in the countries selected for this study. The findings indicate that despite the flexibilities of the World Trade Organization Trade‐Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement regarding the nonpatentability of plants, 60% of the 126 countries in the Global South for which data were available to allow for the patenting of plants or parts thereof, and many such patents have been identified. This situation warrants further reflection and, potentially, review of existing patent laws as developing countries search for ways of responding optimally to the needs of feeding a growing population while adapting to the challenges of climate change.

Societal Impact Statement: The widespread use of patents on plants and plant parts in low‐ and middle‐income countries demonstrates the increasing privatisation of crop genetic resources and potentially limits the use of these resources in farmer breeding, increasing the dependence of smallholder farmers on the private seed sector. Use of genetically modified traits in farmer breeding poses biosafety issues. Adaptation of patent legislation to the benefit of smallholder breeding and development of alternative seed sources from the public breeding sector could contain these negative impacts on farmer‐breeder efforts and ultimately on food and nutrition security.Summary: This paper explores the potential impact of increased use of digital sequence information (DSI) through new breeding technologies (NBTs) and its associated patent and biosafety strategies and policies on smallholder agriculture and breeding in low‐ and middle‐income countries. We performed a case study in the southern Philippines, involving multiple field visits and interviews, where smallholder farmers deliberately and successfully incorporated a genetically modified, patent‐protected trait into popular open‐pollinated varieties (OPVs) of both yellow and white maize, resulting in the wide‐spread dissemination of glyphosate‐tolerant open‐pollinated varieties (OPVs) called sige‐sige. The particular case poses a suite of questions regarding farmer producer health, biosafety and access to plant genetic resources protected by patent rights. Considering current trends, it is predicted that the rise of NBTs such as gene editing will lead to more patents on breeding processes and on gene‐edited crop plants, including in low‐ and middle‐income countries and emerging economies. Since in many jurisdictions NBTs may be regulated as genetic engineering processes and products, biosafety regulations and related management requirements need to be considered as well. By recognising and supporting the breeding efforts of farmers, governments can tap into the potential for creating a wider portfolio of varieties that are better adjusted to the needs of smallholder farmers. If the spread of GMOs in smallholder agriculture should be contained, alternative seed sources for farmer‐breeding from the public breeding sector will be highly needed.