The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

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The International Treaty on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture
The Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II as Vertumnus, by
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1591. Skokloster Castle,
Sweden
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The Treaty deals with plant genetic resources for
food and agriculture

• What is special about genetic resources for food
  and agriculture?
• How do they differ from other genetic resources?

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For 10,000 years, farming communities all over
the world have developed agricultural genetic
resources

• Agriculture began 10,000 years ago, with the
  Neolithic revolution in centres of origin, for
  example
• The Near East barley and wheat
• South-East Asia rice
• The Andes the potato
• Africa millet and sorghum, and in
• Meso-America maize
• We are still coasting on the Neolithic

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The centres of diversity of some major plants
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Farmers created crops

• Farmers altered the original wild plants
• They created diversity by adapting crops to new
  ecosystems and new human needs
• They also found new crops rye is a weed taken
  north, where it proved more productive than the
  cereals

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Many crops cannot survive in nature maize, with
its very tight ears, cannot seed itself. Compared
to the original wild teocinte, maize is almost
unrecognisable
teocinte
maize
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Agriculture has always been based on access and
exchange, not on exclusivity

• People have always swapped their crops and
  landraces
• Farmers exchange seeds and breed exotic material
  into their crops, in order to avoid productivity
  declines

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Crops often do better outside their centres of
origin, because parasites and pathogens do not
travel with them

• When they do, it is crucial to go back to the
  centres of origin to find resistances to them
• The1830s Irish potato famine was because limited
  diversity had come with Europes first potatoes
  from the Americas
• Only when resistances were found in South America
  could the European potato recover

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Crops are spread all over the world, and Food
security depends overwhelmingly on a few crops
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and on the diversity within those crops
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So what is special about agricultural genetic
resources?

• Value in agriculture genetic resources lies in
  diversity within a crop, not at species level
• Farmers maintain this diversity within their
  farming systems. Unless conserved ex situ, it
  dies when farming systems die
• To feed the world, we need all these resources
• Countries and regions are interdependent that
  is, they all depend for their food and
  agriculture on crops that originated elsewhere
• Most of the worlds genetic diversity lies in the
  tropical and semi-tropical countries, not in the
  industrial north

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• These are the challenges to which the
  International Treaty on Plant Genetic resources
  for Food and Agriculture - a new, binding
  international instrument - responds

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The Treaty was adopted by the FAO Conference on 3
November 2001 and will entered into force on 29
June 2004
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The scope of the Treaty is all plant genetic
resources for food and agriculture
J. T. Esquinas
J.T.Esquinas
J. T. Esquinas
J. T. Esquinas
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What are the Treatys objectives?

• The conservation and sustainable use of plant
  genetic resources for food and agriculture
• The fair and equitable sharing of benefits
  derived from their use, in harmony with the
  Convention on Biological Diversity, for
  sustainable agriculture and food security

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Article 5 Conservation, Exploration, Collection,
Characterization, Evaluation and Documentation

• Each Contracting Party shall , in cooperation
  with other Contracting Parties , promote an
  integrated approach to the exploration,
  conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic
  resources for food and agriculture

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Article 6 Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic
Resources

• The Contracting Parties shall develop and
  maintain appropriate policy and legal measures
  that promote the sustainable use of plant genetic
  resources for food and agriculture.

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Article 9 Farmers Rights

• Recognition of the enormous contribution that
  farmers and their communities have made and
  continue to make to the conservation and
  development of plant genetic resources.
• Farmers Rights include the protection of
  traditional knowledge and the right to
  participate equitably in benefit-sharing and in
  national decision-making about plant genetic
  resources.
• Governments are responsible for realizing these
  rights.

J.T. Esquinas
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The Multilateral System of Access and
Benefit-sharing

• The Treaty establishes a multilateral system,
  both to facilitate access to plant genetic
  resources for food and agriculture, and to share,
  in a fair and equitable way, the benefits arising
  from their use.
• It applies to a list of crops established
  according to criteria of food security and
  interdependence
• These provide about 80 of our food from plants

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The Multilateral System pools these crucial
plant genetic resources

• They are available under a standard Material
  Transfer Agreement
• There is no tracking of individual accessions
• Recipients must continue to make the materials
  received available
• Intellectual property or other rights that limit
  access to the plant genetic resources for food
  and agriculture, or their genetic parts and
  components, in the form received from the
  Multilateral System may not be claimed

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Benefit-sharing

• Because these genetic resources are pooled, there
  is no individual owner with whom individual
  contracts for access and benefit-sharing must be
  negotiated
• This means there are very low transaction costs,
  to the benefit of farmers, plant breeders and
  researchers, and ultimately of consumers
• It also means that benefits must be shared in a
  pooled, multilateral way

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Benefit-sharing includes

• Facilitated access is itself a major benefit
• Exchange of information
• Access to and transfer of technology
• Capacity-building
• The sharing of monetary and other benefits of
  commercialization

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Monetary benefit-sharing

• The Treaty includes ground-breaking, innovative
  provisions for monetary benefit-sharing
• If a product that incorporates material from the
  Multilateral System is commercialized in such a
  way that is not available without restriction to
  others for further research and breeding a
  mandatory payment will be made
• If it is available without restriction to
  others, payment is voluntary
• These moneys will be used in the context of the
  Treatys Funding Strategy

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The Treaty includes supporting components

• The Global Plan of Action for the Conservation
  and Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic Resources
  for Food and Agriculture
• Agreements with International Agricultural
  Research Centres ex situ collections (about
  600,000 accessions)
• International Plant Genetic Resources Networks
• The Global Information System

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In order to mobilize funding for priority
activities, plans and programmes, in particular
in developing countries and countries with
economies in transition, and taking the Global
Plan of Action into account, the Governing Body
shall periodically establish a target for such
funding (Article 18.3)
A funding strategy for the implementation of
this Treaty
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The Funding Strategy

• For the conservation of plant genetic resources
  for food and agriculture in developing countries,
  and countries with economies in transition whose
  contribution to the diversity of plant genetic
  resources for food and agriculture in the
  Multilateral System is significant and/or which
  have special needs (Article 13.4)
• The Contracting Parties shall take the
  necessary and appropriate measures within the
  Governing Bodies of relevant international
  mechanisms, funds and bodies to ensure due
  priority and attention to the effective
  allocation of predictable and agreed resources
  for the implementation of plans and programmes
  under this Treaty (Article 18.4a)

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The Status of Ratification and the entry into
force

• The Treaty entered into force 90 days after 40
  countries had ratified it, on 29 June 2004
• At 15 January 2005, 64 countries and the European
  Union had ratified the Treaty
• An updated list of countries that have ratified
  the Treaty is always available at
  http//www.fao.org/Legal/TREATIES/033s-e.htm

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Programme in 2005/06

• Contact Group for the Drafting of the Standard
  Material Transfer Agreement probably July 2005
• Open-ended Working Group on the Rules of
  Procedure and Financial Rules of the Governing
  Body, Compliance, and the Funding Strategy
  probably October 2005
• Governing Body probably early 2006, in Spain