navigating the patent maze

This year’s prestigious food prize has been jointly awarded to Professor Yuan Longping of China, Director-General of the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center in Changsha, Hunan, China and to Dr. Monty Jones of Sierra Leone, former senior rice breeder at the West Africa Rice Development Center (WARDA), presently Executive Secretary, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), in Accra, Ghana.

From the press release at the World Food Prize:

In announcing these recipients, World Food Prize President, Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, lauded both scientists for their “breakthrough scientific achievements which have significantly increased food security for millions of people from Asia to Africa.” The Ambassador added that it was particularly fitting that these two pioneering rice breeders be honored during the United Nations International Year of Rice, the crop identified as the staple diet of more than three billion people around the world.

The World Food Prize, created in 1986 by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr Norman E. Borlaug, is the world’s foremost award inspiring and recognizing breakthrough contributions to improving human development by increasing the quality, quantity, and availability of food in the world.

Professor Yuan has been selected a co-recipient of The World Food Prize for his breakthrough achievement in the early 1970s in developing the genetic tools necessary for hybrid rice breeding, known as a three-line system. His achievement led to the world’s first successful and widely grown high-yielding hybrid rice varieties with yields 20 percent above conventional varieties. His altering of the self-pollinating characteristic of rice made large-scale farming of hybrid rice possible. These achievements dramatically increased rice yields and grain output in China, providing food to feed an additional 60 million people each year. His approach is now being adapted to many other countries in Asia and around the world.

Dr. Jones has been selected a co-recipient of The World Food Prize for developing in the 1990s the “New Rice for Africa” (NERICA), uniquely adapted to the growing conditions of West Africa, by successfully crossing the Asian O. sativa with the African O. glaberrima strains to produce drought and pest resistant, high yielding new rice varieties, a feat which had not been achieved before in the history of rice breeding. His accomplishment is already producing enhanced harvests for thousands and thousands of poor farmers, most of them women, with potential benefit for 20 million farmers in West Africa alone.

While this post is not patent-related per se, it is in keeping with my interest in agricultural biotechnology and its role in ending world hunger; two of the most severe problems in the world are malnutrition and poverty (due in part to the extremely high percentage (~90%) of income spent in developing countries on food).