Resources

Resources

Research Paper: The relationship between intellectual property rights and small-scale farmer innovation

1st May 2016

QUNO logos - vector versions-01

This paper contributes to our understanding of how various intellectual property tools may affect small-scale farmers’ livelihoods, incentives to conserve agricultural biodiversity and recognize and reward farmers for their innovative capacity.

The relationship between intellectual property (IP) and small-scale farmer innovation is far from straightforward. The majority of innovation in agriculture has always and continues to happen on the farm, in a collaborative and incremental process — the outcomes of which cannot easily be attributed to individual rights holders. It is not driven by the promise of exclusionary rights that some IP tools afford. However some IP tools – when carefully selected and adapted to suit domestic circumstances – may have the potential to help drive small-scale farmer innovation or, at minimum, allow the space for it to occur unimpeded. 

This paper discusses how alternative or sui generis plant variety protection systems, collective and certification trademarks, and geographical indications may encourage on-farm innovation; and how IP tools that are more conventionally believed to incentivize innovation in agriculture (i.e. patents, UPOV-style plant variety protection systems and less commonly, trade secrets) have the potential to impede on-farm innovation.

Policy makers at the national level should take into account the value of small-scale farmer innovation when developing national IP legislation to meet international obligations.

Areas of work:
Country:

No file available.

Explore more

Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap (Phase 3 – Briefing Note for INC 5.2)

Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap (Phase 3 – Briefing Note for INC 5.2)

This briefing note by the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) and Eunomia Research & Consulting presents the preliminary findings from the third phase of our “Plastic Money” initiative. Released in August 2025 to coincide with the second part of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5.2) on Plastic Pollution, this work continues our effort to bring clarity and evidence to the global discourse on plastic subsidies. Building on the insights and modelling from Phase 1 and Phase 2, this latest study expands the scope of analysis to include not only feedstock and energy subsidies but also a wider range of government support measures. These include capital investment grants, in-kind benefits, tax expenditures, and various forms of below-market financing. The study provides updated global estimates for such subsidies and models the environmental and economic implications of their removal. As governments work toward a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty, the role of public financial flows—including subsidies to the production of primary plastic polymers (PPP)—has come under increasing scrutiny. Subsidies reduce production costs, incentivise new investment, and help make virgin fossil-based polymers more competitive than recycled plastics and competing alternative or substitute materials. In doing so, they reinforce a linear and extractive economic model […]

Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap (Phase 3 – Briefing Note for INC 5.2)

QUNO Review 2025

The Quaker United Nations Office is pleased to announce the release of our 2025 QUNO Review. As in previous years, the Review documents the work of our staff and partners across all program areas between our offices in New York and Geneva as we continue to support UN initiatives and influence international policy toward a more just and peaceful world.   Over the past year, many challenges and conflicts have arisen or continued around the world. QUNO has worked on these by building trust and community with our UN partners, and providing space for dialogue and analysis. QUNO staff engaged with the UN’s Human Rights Council, presented research on the intersection between climate change and sustainable economic development, hosted Peace Games from New York to Uganda, and undertook additional initiatives aimed at fostering peace in the international community. To learn more about the past year’s work, and to see how you can support us in the future, explore the full Review below.  

Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap (Phase 3 – Briefing Note for INC 5.2)

Our Right to a Healthy Environment

QUNO is pleased to share the publication of a new resource on the Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment (R2He). In celebrating this newly recognized right, we hope that our easily shareable guide will empower each of us as individuals and members of our communities to advocate for our rights, participate in decision making, and hold governments to account.  Over 85% of UN Member States recognize a right to a healthy environment in either constitutions, legislation, or regional treaties. Recognition of R2He means states have the obligation to uphold and protect this as enumerated. If and when they do not, advocates can and must push for its proper implementation.  Our guide details the history, importance, and context of R2He within the human rights system and its relation and intersection with other universal human rights. Read on for a thorough introduction to this critical right and an outline of steps individuals can follow to take action. The guide can be found below. 

Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap (Phase 3 – Briefing Note for INC 5.2)

Summary Report – “Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap (Phase 2)”

The Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO), in collaboration with Eunomia Research & Consulting Ltd., is pleased to announce the release of the Summary Report for Phase 2 of the initiative titled Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap. This report is being released ahead of the Fifth Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) on Plastic Pollution, which begins on 25 November 2024, in Busan, Republic of Korea. This release marks another milestone in our ongoing efforts to provide greater clarity on the nature and extent of subsidies in the production of primary plastic polymers (PPPs) and seeks to serve as a resource for negotiators and stakeholders as they deliberate measures to develop an international legally binding instrument to address plastic pollution. Important figures from Phase 2: Global subsidies for PPP production: The study estimates total subsidies to polymer production at USD 45 billion in 2024, projected to rise to USD 78 billion by 2050 under a baseline scenario. These subsidies disproportionately benefit major producers, with Saudi Arabia alone accounting for USD 38 billion in 2024. Production volumes: In 2024, global production of commodity polymers is expected to reach 306 million tonnes, rising to 590 million tonnes by 2050 under […]

Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap (Phase 3 – Briefing Note for INC 5.2)

Full Report: “Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap (Phase 2)”

This study by the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) and Eunomia, conducted with grant funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and supported by Dalberg Catalyst, presents the results of a second phase of research and modelling to understand the extent of subsidies for primary polymer production (PPP) and the potential impact of removing these.  Synthetic plastic polymers are ubiquitous in modern life, but each stage of the plastics lifecycle – from extracting, refining and polymerising hydrocarbons to disposing of plastic waste – contributes to climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Eliminating subsidies for plastics production is one measure under consideration by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC), which is working to develop the UN-mandated Global Plastics Treaty to end plastic pollution. The study aims to fill gaps in the data on subsidies for the industry segment that processes raw materials for plastic, produces basic resins and extrudes them as plastic pellets. It builds on the results of a Phase 1 report to model the impacts of removing PPP subsidies against a business-as-usual scenario and finds it would significantly reduce primary polymer production. It also models the likely impacts on prices for consumers and finds these would increase minimally in […]

Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap (Phase 3 – Briefing Note for INC 5.2)

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR): What is Sustainable and Just?

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR): What is Sustainable and Just? By Duncan McLaren and Olaf Corry As atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations continue to rise apace and global temperatures and climate impacts accelerate due to insufficient global action, many are placing hopes and expectations in large scale anthropogenic ‘carbon dioxide removal’ (CDR) to balance the global carbon budget.  CDR comprises a range of ideas and schemes that aim to draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide (which is already at harmful levels) and store it safely. In pursuing a maximum of a 1.5°C temperature rise at 2100, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Reports include many potentially unsustainable scenarios with removal of between 6 and 11 billion tonnes of CO2 (6-11 Gt-CO2) every year for 50 years.  This would be a staggering amount of removal and storage and raises a host of challenging questions not only about feasibility and effectiveness, but also about safety, sustainability, legality, justice, ethics and geo-politics.  Questions include: – Are such rates of removal even possible in the face of technical, economic and social limits? – Whose continued emissions would be counterbalanced with CDR?  – What would a world of large-scale CDR look like in terms of human rights, […]