The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (IT PGRFA), popularly known as the International Seed Treaty, is a comprehensive international agreement in harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity, which aims at guaranteeing food security through the conservation, exchange and sustainable use of the world's plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), as well as the fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from its use. It also recognises Farmers' Rights: to freely access genetic resources, unrestricted by intellectual property rights; to be involved in relevant policy discussions and decision making; and to use, save, sell and exchange seeds, subject to national laws.
However, as Regine Anderson of the farmers' rights project, among others, including Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, argue, the interpretation and realisation of farmers' rights is weak and is not the same across all countries. Without a consistent, strong international focus on the realising the rights of farmers who conserve and sustainably use PGRFA to save, use, exchange and sell seeds saved on-farm, genetic variety of crops and related agricultural biodiversity will suffer. India, for example, includes an interpretation of farmers' rights in its Plant Variety Protection and Farmers' Rights Act, allowing farmers a restricted right to save and sell seed they have produced on-farm as they always have, even if it contains genes from a protected variety.,
The treaty has implemented a Multilateral System (MLS) of access and benefit sharing, among those countries that ratify the treaty, for a list of 64 of some of the most important food and forage crops essential for food security and interdependence. The genera and species are listed in Annex 1 to the treaty.
The treaty was negotiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) and since 2006 has its own Governing Body under the aegis of the FAO. The Governing Body is the highest organ of the Treaty as established in Article 19. Composed of representatives of all Contracting Parties, its basic function is to promote the full implementation of the Treaty, including the provision of policy guidance on the implementation of the Treaty. The Governing Body elects its Chairperson and Vice-Chairpersons, in conformity with its Rules of Procedure. They are collectively referred to as "the Bureau".
Some believe the treaty could be an example of responsible global governance for ensuring that plant genetic resources essential for present and future food security can be kept accessible to all farmers and in the public domain. Chapter 7 of the Second Report on the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (SoWPGR-2) entitled "Access to Plant Genetic Resources, the sharing of benefits arising out of their utilization and the realization of Farmers’ Rights" is mainly dedicated to the International Treaty.
Read more about International Treaty On Plant Genetic Resources For Food And Agriculture: Sessions of The Governing Body, Negotiations and Entry Into Force, Discussion, Participating Countries, List of Crops Covered in Annex 1
Famous quotes containing the words treaty, plant, genetic, resources, food and/or agriculture:
“It is accordance with our determination to refrain from aggression and build up a sentiment and practice among nations more favorable to peace ... that we have incurred the consent of fourteen important nations to the negotiation of a treaty condemning recourse to war, renouncing it as an instrument of national policy.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“We shall not always plant while others reap”
—Countee Cullen (1903–1946)
“Man is not merely the sum of his masks. Behind the shifting face of personality is a hard nugget of self, a genetic gift.... The self is malleable but elastic, snapping back to its original shape like a rubber band. Mental illness is no myth, as some have claimed. It is a disturbance in our sense of possession of a stable inner self that survives its personae.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Your children don’t have equal talents now and they won’t have equal opportunities later in life. You may be able to divide resources equally in childhood, but your best efforts won’t succeed in shielding them from personal or physical crises. . . . Your heart will be broken a thousand times if you really expect to equalize your children’s happiness by striving to love them equally.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“Architecture might be more sportive and varied if every man built his own house, but it would not be the art and science that we have made it; and while every woman prepares food for her own family, cooking can never rise beyond the level of the amateur’s work.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)
“In past years, the amount of money that has had to be been spent on armaments, great and small, instead of on productive industry and agriculture and the arts, has been a disgrace to all of us in every part of the world.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)