Global rules, patent power and the future control of food

Geoff Tansey

A talk by Geoff Tansey ,
co-editor of the recently-released

The Future Control of Food
A Guide to International Negotiations and Rules on Intellectual Property, Biodiversity and Food Secur ity

Geoff Tansey will discuss the growing importance of rules on patents and other forms of intellectual property in shaping future food systems, especially through biotechnology, and certain issues surrounding these. In particular he will look at what has changed since the 1990s, with the creation of new global rules linking intellectual property, biodiversity and food security. These rules are made in different negotiating fora by groups and ministries dealing with different interests. They are reshaping the framework in which people working in the food system operate.

The Future Control of Food:
A Guide To International Negotiations And Rules On Intellectual Property, Biodiversity And Food Security
is edited by Geoff Tansey and Tasmin Rajotte, and published in January 2008 by Earthscan .

Geoff Tansey is a researcher and writer on intellectual property, food and agriculture and a Joseph Rowntree Visionary for a Just and Peaceful World. He is lead author of The Food System (1995) and co-editor of The World Divided (1994) The Meat Business (1999) and Negotiating Health (2005). He helped found and edit the journal Food Policy in the mid-1970s, has been a consultant to international agencies, governments and non-government organisations and worked on various agricultural development projects. He is an honorary visiting research fellow in the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University and visiting fellow at the centre for Rural Economy at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. He was senior consultant for the intellectual property and development programmes of the Quaker United Nations Office, Geneva and Quaker International Affairs Programme (QIAP), Ottawa from 1999-2007 and a consultant for DFID for the first phase of the UNCTAD-ICTSD Project on Intellectual Property Rights and Sustainable Development. He is also a member and a director of The Food Ethics Council and a member of the consultative panel of the Sustainable Development Commission .

Contact email: soasfoodstudies@soas.ac.uk