the government sought to improve enforcement and control of property rights in new
varieties:
One of the main achievements of the process, initiated in 1990 and completed and
consolidated with the creation of INASE, was to make more transparent the commerce of
self-pollinating seed species, particularly soybean and wheat, where the legal market for
these species reached just 25% of the total demand of seeds. This meant that most of the
market for seeds had no guarantee of identity and quality, there was a high degree of tax
evasion and there was no recognition of the property rights of the inventors of varieties
registered in property giving as a result a disincentive to invest in new varieties .... 43
However, this kind of property rights protection has not been useful in protecting the
soybean seed market from brown-bagging and stealing.44
In contrast to the CONASE, the INASE’s only role is the management and enforcement
of the different issues concerning commercial rights on seeds, although the same
constituencies that formed the CONASE were represented in this Agency.45
With respect to the farmer’s privilege, the INASE issued Norm 35/96 INASE in
February 1996 to define the limits and scope of this privilege, broadly established in the
Law No. 20247.46 Under Norm 35/96 INASE tried to limit the application of the
farmer’s privilege to specific cases in which the farmer actually saves some seed for the
next crop, limiting the scope of saved seed established by Article 27 of Law No. 20247,
which allowed other uses for saved seed.47 It established specific rules for saved seeds to
be considered under this privilege. For example, the main criteria for being considered
under this rule are that first, the solicitor should be a farmer. Then, the farmer should
43 Evolucion, supra note 16, at 15.
44 Discussing the depression of soybean seed prices by the black-market sale of seeds in Argentina,
the U.S. General Accounting Office found:
A group of Argentine seed companies and breeders, called the Argentine Association for the Protection
of Plant Varieties, in cooperation with the government, have had an effort under way since 1990 to
enforce the law and limit the sale of uncertified seed on the black market. The effort helped reduce
black market sales from about three-quarters of all soybean seed sales in 1992 to about half in 1994.
However, according to Argentine industry officials, black market sales subsequently increased in
response to higher prices for commercial seeds following the initial marketing of Roundup Ready
soybean seeds in 1996.
U.S. Gen. Accounting Office (2000), at 15-16.
45 See Decree No. 2817/91, supra note, 71.
46 See Secretaria de Agricultura Ganaderia y Pesca [SAGyP], Resolucion INASE No. 35/96 (Feb. 28,
1996), available at http://www.inase.gov.ar/tikiwiki/tiki-
list_file_gallery.php?galleryId=2&offset=0&sort_mode=description_desc.
47 See id. at art. 1; Law No. 20247, Mar. 30, 1973, [volume] B.O. art. 27, available at
www.sagpya.mecon.gov.ar/new/0-0/inase/pdf/Normativa/LEY-20.247.PDF.
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