Rome, Italy
March 4, 2003

• World's agricultural heritage further threatened by war, terrorist activities, economic hardship, leaders say

Key leaders in agriculture announced today their progress in charting a course forward for an unprecedented effort to protect and maintain humanity's agricultural heritage. Crop diversity collections, housed in some 1,470 "genebanks," hold millions of plant samples that are the underpinning of a stable and sustainable food supply. These samples are the result of some 10,000 years of planting, plowing, and breeding of crops for human use.

Many of these collections are seriously underfunded, jeopardizing the ongoing security of agriculture and the world's ability to feed itself. In response, the Global Conservation Trust seeks to create an endowment to support crop diversity collections in perpetuity. Spearheaded by the Future Harvest Centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Trust convened the first meeting of a newly constituted Interim Panel of Eminent Experts in development, agriculture, and science. (See attached list of panel members.)

The Panel considered legal options and rules of governance for the Trust and drafted ethical guidelines for the receipt, management, and disbursement of funds. The meeting was held in Rome on 25-26 February.

"Crop diversity is a little known necessity for meeting the most fundamental need of humankind: the need for food," said Louise Fresco, Assistant Director-General of FAO. "I am pleased that this important effort is moving forward under the guidance and leadership of such an eminent array of scientists and statesmen. They will provide the necessary political, financial, and technical guidance to shape the Trust."

The Panel also sounded an alarm about the need for governments and the private sector around the world to take urgent actions to help protect global crop diversity.

"Funding for crop diversity collections has always been hand-to-mouth, most often decided on a year-to-year basis," said Ambassador Fernando Gerbasi, Chair of the Interim Panel of Eminent Experts. Ambassador Gerbasi successfully chaired the inter-governmental negotiations leading to the creation of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. He now serves as Chair of the Interim Governing Body of the International Treaty. "The situation is now even more dire given world economies. An outbreak of armed conflict anywhere in the world could damage critical collections of crop diversity, and divert scarce funding from their maintenance. The world cannot let the infrastructure that underlies our food security crumble."

The Trust seeks to raise an endowment of US$260 million. Approximately US$25 million has been committed so far by the governments of the United States, Switzerland, Egypt and Colombia, and the United Nations and Gatsby Foundations.

Crop diversity provides the raw material necessary for farmers and plant breeders to develop reliable, hardier, more productive, and nutritious food crops. Such crops are needed to enable agriculture to remain at the forefront of the fight against poverty and hunger. Farmers and breeders must constantly bolster crops against pests, diseases, weeds, drought, poor soils, and other farming problems by breeding in new characteristics to protect them. Crop diversity is the pool from which they draw these traits.

"The Middle East is the center of origin for critical crops such as wheat, barley, peas, and lentils," said Geoffrey Hawtin, Director General of the Rome-based International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI). Dr. Hawtin's appointment as Interim Executive Secretary of the Global Conservation Trust was confirmed by the Interim Panel at its meeting last week. "Last year, Afghanistan's main genebank was looted. All countries are interdependent when it comes to agriculture and when one genebank fails, the loss reverberates around the world. That genebank, like so many others, probably contained plant varieties that are already extinct in the wild and which now may be lost forever."

The meeting in Rome confirmed the Trust's critical role in implementing the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The Treaty, adopted in November 2001 by consensus of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's 140-member nations is
the highest international law that addresses the conservation and use of plant genetic resources.

"The Global Conservation Trust operates within the framework of the International Treaty," said Gerbasi. "Its principles of transparency and equity will be the Trust's guiding principles. At the
same time, the Trust could provide a concrete funding mechanism to help realize the goals of the
Treaty."

Further information on the Global Conservation Trust can be found at: http://startwithaseed.org. 

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is one of the largest specialized agencies in the United Nations system and the lead agency for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and rural development. FAO works to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, improved nutrition, and the pursuit of food security-defined as the access of all people at all times to the food they need for an active and healthy life.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is an association of public and private members supporting a system of 16 Future Harvest Centres that work in more than 100 countries to mobilize cutting-edge science to reduce hunger and poverty, improve human nutrition and health, and protect the environment.

Interim Panel of Eminent Experts for the Establishment of the Global Conservation Trust

• Ambassador Fernándo Gerbasi (Venezuela)
  Chair of the Interim Committee for the implementation of the International Treaty
  Chair, Interim Panel of Eminent
  Experts, the Global Conservation Trust
   
• Lukas Brader (the Netherlands)
  Former Director General, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Nigeria
   
• Tewolde Gebre Egziabher (Ethiopia)
  General Manager, Environmental Protection Authority, Ethiopia
   
• Walter Fust (Switzerland)
  Director General, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
   
• Geoffrey C. Hawtin (UK/Canada)
  Director General, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), Rome
  Interim Executive Secretary, the Global Conservation Trust
   
• Chebet Maikut (Uganda)
  President, Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE)
  Chair, International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) Committee on
  Science and Technology
   
• Mohammad H. Roozitalab (Iran)
  Deputy Director General, Agricultural Research and Education Organization, Iran
   
• Setijati Sastrapradja (Indonesia)
  Senior Scientist, Indonesian Institute of Sciences
   
• Ismail Serageldin (Egypt)
  Director, New Library of Alexandria, Egypt
  Former Chair, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
   
• Sir Richard Sykes (UK)
  Rector of Imperial College, London
  Former CEO, GlaxoSmithKline