One positive outcome at the ITPGRFA meet was the recognition of the contribution of farmers in preserving the diversity of crops that feed the world
The 9th session of the Governing Body meeting (GB9) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) ended September 24, 2022, after six days of discussion but no decisions.
Decisions on crucial issues such as the multilateral system (MLS) of access and benefit sharing (ABS) and digital sequence information (DSI) have been deferred to later.
It was decided that the final decision on how to enhance the MLS of ABS would be taken at the treaty’s 11th Governing Body (GB11) meeting three years from now.
The group agreed that the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group to Enhance the Functioning of the MLS would work on the issue during this period.
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The delegates have however agreed unanimously that MLS would be enhanced. This includes ensuring that more crops are available under the system and more money is available in the benefit sharing fund.
An amount of Rs 20 lakh was donated to the fund by the Federation of Seed Industry of India during the meeting itself.
This donation from the Indian entity is the first contribution towards the Benefit Sharing Fund and it is expected that more such funds would be available during the coming years.
There were intense discussions on the topic of DSI too. The lack of consensus was most pronounced here.
Some members wanted to wait for the decision taken on this subject at the 15th Conference of Parties (CoP15) to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) which would be held in December in Montreal, Canada.
Others wanted to forge a path that was more in sync with the needs of plant genetic resources used in food and agriculture. India was one of the latter and demanded that deliberations on Digital Sequence Information in Plant Treaty should be independent of discussions at the CBD.
India said ITPGRFA should not wait for CBD to resolve this issue as deliberations at it are relatively ahead in content, delineated in scope and easy to implement.
North America, which is not part of the CBD, too opposed delegating decision-making on DSI related to PGRFA to the CBD. The International Seed Federation too stressed that the Treaty should not wait for other bodies to make a decision on DSI.
Africa called for a GB9 decision urging the CBD Conference of the Parties to consider a multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism for use of DSI to support conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, including plant genetic resources used for food and agriculture.
Notably, Africa had raised this issue at the CBD working group meeting too, saying that they would not support a Global Diversity Framework unless a multilateral system was created.
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In a statement, the global advocacy group Third World Network pointed out that there was a “coordinated attempts to dismantle” ABS frameworks while DSI use is expanding globally. They underlined the need for a concrete solution before GB11.
Both these issues are currently being discussed at multiple fora and discussions here are likely to inform the decisions later this year at CoP15 of Convention on Biological Diversity.
Before GB9, it was already discussed at the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.
ABS is part of the High Seas Treaty which was discussed here but no decision was taken. Both issues have been discussed multiple times under the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework of the World Health Organization.
One positive outcome at the GB9 was the recognition of the contribution of farmers in preserving the diversity of crops that feed the world.
A resolution on implementation of farmers’ rights was adopted. The consensus was evolved on the implementation of farmers’ rights after extensive negotiations over the last five years.
The GB9 called upon the members to update others of national measures, best practices and lessons learnt for implementing farmers’ rights.
The Treaty’s secretariat was also requested to publish the options for realisation of rights of farmers. The Government of India announced that it would host a global symposium on Farmers’ Rights to share experiences and discuss future work on Farmers’ Rights.
ITPGRFA is a legally binding comprehensive agreement adopted in November 2001 at Rome during the 31st session of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which entered into force on June 29, 2004 and currently has 150 Contracting Parties, including India.
The treaty provides solutions to achieve food and nutritional security as well as climate resilient agriculture. Countries are interdependent for plant genetic resources and a global order is essential to facilitate access and benefit sharing.
The Governing Body agreed that its Tenth Session will be held in the last quarter of 2023 at the FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy.
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