Under the scheme, CIP scientists and local farmers are working together to establish domesticated varieties and wild potato relatives from CIP's germplasm collection in a 'potato park'.

The park is located in Pisac in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, in the department of Cusco. Six rural communities live in the park, which spreads over 12 thousand hectares between 3400 and 4500 meters above sea level. Administered by the local people themselves, this initiative is an example of local conservation and sustainable use of the agrobiodiversity, because the park also provides food for the communities.

Local farmers in Peru cultivate more than 2000 varieties of native potatoes, most of which are not sold commercially. They are the result of a process of natural selection and of arduous domestication with ancestral technologies that date back to pre-Inca times. That local knowledge is precisely what the framework of the agreement is intended to protect, by keeping the control of genetic resources with the local people.

The document is the first of its kind to be signed in Peru and in the CGIAR. It is a prime example of the practical application of international treaties on the access to the genetic resources, such as the Convention on Biodiversity and the International Treaty on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture of FAO.

Alejandro Argumedo, associate director of the Association for Nature and Sustainable Development, the group that has assumed the representation of the six rural communities that form the Potato Park, 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.

In a commentary, the international science weekly New Scientist wrote, "Deals like this one prevent multinational seed companies patenting traditional varieties of crops to exploit their native genes. This practice has sometimes forced communities to pay fees for growing seeds they originally bred."

The Inter Press Service News Agency noted that several policy analysts and civil society campaigners are preparing to push for similar initiatives at a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity to be held in Bangkok in February, and at a World Intellectual Property Organisation meeting to be held in Geneva in June.