11th ITPGRFA meet postpones key decisions on expanding plant list

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The eleventh governing body meeting of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) or Plant Treaty concluded earlier today in Lima, Peru, with the chair deciding to postpone the decision on expanding the list of crops under the Multilateral System (MLS) and also the revised plant material transfer agreement to the next meeting, sources said.

 

The meeting had entered a crucial phase after the chair of ITPGRFA proposed a compromise document where it wanted expansion of the MLS to include all crops and revision of the transfer agreement.

 

Civil society groups in India had warned the country against signing the agreement as it would have compromised India’s sovereign rights on seeds. Presently, the MLS has 64 crops and forages.

 

ITPGRFA is a legally binding global treaty adopted in 2001 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and came into force in 2004. Its stated objectives are conservation, sustainable use, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits from Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA).

 

The treaty establishes a multilateral system (MLS) that provides access to a list of important crops for research and breeding, while ensuring that benefits from their use are shared among the signatories.

 

Of the 64 crops under the treaty, India has notified just nine, along with their 26,563 ‘accessions’ for the MLS. An ‘accession’, in FAO terminology, is “a distinct, uniquely identifiable sample of seeds representing a cultivar, breeding line or a population, which is maintained in storage for conservation and use”.

 

India has been one of the top beneficiaries of the agreement without sharing much of its own seed germplasm resources, experts said. The current round of negotiations started on Tuesday, November 25, and concluded earlier today.