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Agreement protects genetic diversity of Peru's potato varieties and rights of indigenous people to control access to local genetic resources
January 26, 2005

Indigenous communities' rights to potato strains recognised
 
A groundbreaking agreement in Peru has recognised the rights of indigenous communities over potato strains that they had developed. The pact signed by six Peruvian indigenous communities with the International Potato Center (IPC), a Lima-based agricultural research centre and gene bank, would prevent companies from patenting the potato strains as well as the related traditional knowledge.
 
Under the agreement -- the first of its kind -- the gene bank returns the genetic resources and knowledge associated with the potato strains to the six communities, which have established a 'potato park' in a conservation area to grow and manage the plants. It also specifies that they should not become "subject to intellectual property rights in any form". Alejandro Argumedo from the Association for Nature and Sustainable Development (ANDES), which helped broker the deal, described it as "a first legal sign of the restoration of rights that indigenous people once had." He stressed that the communities were not interested in patenting the potato strains, since patents "represent a model of property that does not fit into their worldview" which is based on the open exchange and sharing of information.
 
The London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) hailed the agreement for allowing the indigenous communities to "unlock the potato gene bank and repatriate biological diversity to farming communities and the natural environment for local and global benefit," and suggested that it might inform similar processes elsewhere.
 
The text of the agreement is available at http://www.grain.org/bio-ipr/?id=429
 
"Potato Capital of the world offers up new recipe," IPS, 18 January 2005; " New Potato Deal in Peru Signposts Global Drive to Open Up Food Genebanks to Indigenous Peoples," INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT, 18 January 2005; " Indians in Peru regain potato rights," NEW SCIENTIST, 22 January 2005.

Source: BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 9, Number 2 26 January 2005


Lima, Peru
January 19, 2005

by Priya Shetty, SciDev.Net

Farming communities in Peru have signed an agreement with the International Potato Centre (CIP) to protect both the genetic diversity of the region's numerous potato varieties, and the rights of indigenous people to control access to these local genetic resources.

Under the scheme, CIP scientists and local farmers will 'repatriate' potato varieties from CIP's collection of specimens — the world's most comprehensive — and conserve them in a 'potato park'. As well as providing food for the six communities that jointly own the land in southern Peru, the 15,000-hectare park will serve as a 'living library' of potato genetic diversity.

Peruvian farmers have 'lost' some of their traditional potato varieties for various reasons, including government policies to push ahead with commercial production and discard old-fashioned growing methods.

The agreement, which is the first of its kind, aims to ensure that the control of genetic resources is kept with local people. Alejandro Argumedo, associate director of the Association for Nature and Sustainable Development — a Cusco-based civil society group that helped broker the deal — believes that it could serve as a model for other indigenous communities.

"Biological diversity is best rooted in its natural environment and managed by indigenous peoples who know it best," says Argumedo.

Despite this, he says that the agreement was not drawn up for local communities to secure intellectual property rights over indigenous potato strains. Rather, the intention is to ensure that the genetic material does not become "subject to intellectual property rights in any form" and that the diversity of Peruvian potato varieties is maintained.

Argumedo told SciDev.Net that CIP has agreed to pay for the cost of reintroducing the strains as an acknowledgment of the benefits the organisation has derived from the indigenous knowledge of the region.

However, he maintains that this agreement would not hamper collaborative research between the CIP and scientists elsewhere — provided that the research is not used for exploitative or commercial purposes.

CIP is one of the 15 research centres of Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which aims to reduce poverty and increase food security in developing countries through scientific research.

Rachel Wynberg of Biowatch South Africa, an organisation that monitors the commercialisation of biological resources, hopes that "this agreement signals a new way of working for CGIAR centres — one which advances the rights of local farming communities, over those of corporations, and which places the ownership of genetic resources firmly with the local custodians of these resources".

At a meeting in Mexico in November 2004, environmental activists protested that CGIAR was building too many links with large biotechnology corporations that promote genetically modified crops (see Agriculture group panders to GM giants, say activists).

Alejandro Argumedo is on the advisory panel of SciDev.Net's indigenous knowledge dossier

For more on this subject, visit SciDev.Net's dossiers on intellectual property and indigenous knowledge
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