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May 25, 2009
Source:
FAO
The
Third Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty
on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture will be
held in Tunis from 1 to 5 June 2009 and will be preceded by two
days of consultations. The opening session will begin at 10.00
a.m. on Monday June 1st..
More than 100 experts from around the world will discuss ways
and means to strengthen the International Treaty on Plant
Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and enhance its
funding strategy including the mobilization of additional
financial resources for plant genetic projects/programmes to
help farmers, especially in developing countries and countries
in transition.
This legally binding Treaty, which entered into force in 2004,
is an international agreement critical to the future of
agriculture and food security worldwide. It offers a
multilateral framework for accessing genetic resources and
sharing their benefits. It also helps developing countries
improve the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic
resources
The world's crop gene pool is essential for feeding a growing
population. These genes provide the raw materials that plant
breeders need to develop new varieties to face potential future
challenges such as climate change and unknown pests and plant
diseases, and to ensure a richer diet.
Another important aspect of the Treaty is its multilateral
system for access and benefit sharing which ensures the use of
plant genetic resources based on the principle of easy access
and exchange, and the fair and equitable sharing of the
benefits. Benefit sharing includes exchange of information,
access and transfer of technology and capacity building.
This ultimately benefits consumers, by providing them with
greater choice and quality of food products.
May 1, 2009
The Third Session of the Governing
Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for
Food and Agriculture will bring together in Tunis, from 1 to 5
June 2009, more than 300 participants to discuss about the
future regulation and implementation of the Multilateral System
of Access and Benefit-sharing.
The meeting will gather delegates from 120 Contracting Parties
and a large number of observers from other countries, from UN
Agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations and the civil society.
One of the main topics of the agenda is the Multilateral System
of Access and Benefit-sharing, the innovative mechanism
established by the Treaty to facilitate the exchange of plant
genetic resources for food and agriculture and to set up the
fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of
these resources, on a complementary and mutually reinforcing
basis.
The Session will be an opportunity for participants to know more
details about the status and current operations of the gene
pool, which initiated to facilitate the exchange of the 64 food
crops included in Annex I of the Treaty in January 2007.
Delegates and observers will receive information about the
collections included in the Multilateral System and will revise
the draft procedures for dispute settlement, which is one of the
main tools to guarantee the fairness of the system.
Call for Proposal 2008/09
The second main pillar of the Multilateral System is the fair
and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization
of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. The Second
Session of the Governing Body delegated the seven members of the
Bureau, who represent the different FAO regions, the possibility
to open the call for project proposals. The Call was opened in
December 2008 and it is foreseen that a number of projects will
be awarded grants of maximum 50,000 USD dollars. The
announcement of the Projects to be funded through the
Benefit-sharing Fund will be done during the Third Session of
the Governing Body.
The projects proposals submitted focused on the sustainable use
of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, on-farm
conservation and managing of plant genetic resources,
information exchange, technology transfer and capacity-building.
The number of eligible Pre- proposals received by the
Secretariat of the Treaty was over 300.
The fair and equitable distribution of benefits arising from the
use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the
establishment of the Benefit-sharing Fund was one of the main
requests coming from developing countries Contracting Parties
and a number of civil society organizations in the Second
Session of the Governing Body in 2007.
This first Call for Proposals, which was possible thanks to the
generous contributions made by Norway, Italy and Spain, makes
the Benefit-sharing Fund operative and recognizes the
contribution of farmers of all the world in conserving,
improving and making available these resources, relevant for the
food security of humankind..
Other issues of interest will be the sustainable use of plant
genetic resources for food and agriculture, farmers' rights and
the cooperation with other organizations.
This Treaty is crucial in the fight against hunger and poverty
and essential for the achievement of the Millennium Development
Goals 1 and 7. No country is self-sufficient in plant genetic
resources as all depend on genetic diversity in crops from other
countries and regions. International cooperation and open
exchange of genetic resources are therefore essential for food
security. |
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