Marketing of a new plant variety

I have plant breeders' rights: can I effectively market the plant variety?

Plant breeders' rights do not affect the regulations on the production, control and marketing of plant variety material or the import or export of such material (Art.18 UPOV 1991 Convention).

For example, the commercialisation of the varieties of certain crops may indeed be subject to specific conditions. Some examples, each applicable to certain types:

• the varieties of some agricultural crops (wheat, maize, potatoes, etc.) must be registered in the National Agricultural Variety List before they can be commercialized. The same applies to the varieties of certain vegetable crops (leek, onion, tomato, etc.), which must be entered in the National Vegetable Variety List;
• phytosanitary regulations must be respected;
• in certain cases the material must meet certain quality standards (purity, germination capacity, etc.);
• sometimes separate permits have to be applied for (for example, for genetically modified material).

So it is not because you have obtained plant breeders' rights for a particular variety that you can automatically market it.

More information

• For Flanders, you can contact the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries 
• For Wallonia you can consult the Walloon agriculture portal
• See also FPS Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment