The Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties (UPOV) was created in 1961 in Europe to give plant breeders a legal monopoly over seeds and therefore allow them to collect bigger profits from genetic innovations. It was specifically designed to promote industrial agriculture in industrial countries through a series of fixed requirements. UPOV’s system of Plant Variety Protection (PVP) actually does nothing to protect plant varieties. Instead, it gives patent-like rights to plant breeders, protecting them – and their market shares – instead. There are terrible problems associated with intellectual property over plant varieties – threatening fundamental issues such as food security and human rights – and particularly with the UPOV Convention itself.