摘要：Intellectual property protection, globalization, and pressure on public budgets in manyindustrialized countries have shifted the balance of plant breeding activity from thepublic to the private sector. Several economic factors influence the relative shares ofpublic versus private sector plant breeding activity, with varying results over time,over country, and over crop. The private sector, for example, dominates corn breedingthroughout the industrialized world, but public and private activities in wheat breedingdiffer widely in Western Europe, different regions of the United States, Canada, andAustralia. Public sector involvement in plant breeding may have benefits to societythat the private sector.s activities may not, fostering greater sharing of information andmore work on traits of plant varieties (such as environmental suitability and nutritionalcharacteristics) that may be under-researched by private breeding programs.
关键词：Plant breeding; economics; public sector; private sector; research policy;biotechnology; and intellectual property
