PVS: Plant Breeders' Rights
Royalty payments on farm saved seed
The Plant Varieties Act 1997 provides for holders of rights to claim remuneration from farmers for the use of farm saved seed of varieties of the following species:
Cereals
- Oats
- Barley
- Rice
- Canary grass
- Rye
- Triticale
- Wheat
- Durum wheat
- Spelt wheat
Fodder plants
- Chickpea milkvetch
- Yellow lupin
- Lucerne
- Field Pea
- Berseem/Egyptian clover
- Persian clover
- Field Bean
- Common vetch
Oil and fibre plants
- Swede rape
- Turnip rape
- Linseed, with the exclusion of flax
Potatoes
- Potatoes
Farmers who use farm saved seed of a protected variety, or a variety which is essentially derived from the protected variety, are liable to pay the holder of rights equitable remuneration, which is "sensibly lower" than the amount charged for the production of propagating material of the variety with his authority in the same area.
Full details of the farm saved seed provisions are at Section 9 of the 1997 Act and in The Plant Breeders' Rights (Farm Saved Seed)(Specification) Order 1998 and The Plant Breeders' Rights (Farm Saved Seed)(Specified Information) Regulations 1998.
Advice and information on payment rates or collection is available from:
The British Society
of Plant Breeders (BSPB)
Woolpack Chambers
Market Street
Ely
CB7 4ND
Tel 01353 653200
Page last modified:
22 December 2005
Page published: 22 December 2005