Variety Development and Variety Tes ting, Variety Regis tration (Release) and Protection (PVP) Sys tems in The Eco Countries

Abstract

The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is an intergovernmental regional organization es tablished in 1985 by Iran,Pakis tan and Turkey for the purpose of promoting economic, technical and cultural cooperation among the Member S tates.In 1992, the Organization was expanded to include seven new members, namely: Afghanis tan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhs tan,Kyrgyzs tan, Tajikis tan, Turkmenis tan and Uzbekis tan. Seed sys tems and seed trade in ECO region has been already constrained somewhat by regulations and policies that were es tablished when formal seed production were dominated mainlyby the public sector. Variety release procedures were designed to meet the needs of public research ins titutes and seed certificationsys tem was mainly focused on public or paras tatal seed enterprises. Procedures for variety tes ting and approvalcons tituted a significant barrier to seed trade and inhibited the spread of new varieties beyond national boundaries. Thisled to delays in release and often rejection of useful varieties that did not meet the criteria and procedures. A variety releasedin one country faced long battles to gain release in a second country. Commercial seed trade was also hampered bylack of intellectual property protection for plant varieties and by different procedures for import and export of seed. Underthe FAO-ECO launched “Seed Sector Development in Countries of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO)”, theRegional Seed Agreement and Regional Seed S trategy were developed. In this presentation, variety development; varietytes ting and regis tration; variety protection sys tem in the ECO Countries have been evaluated.