March 7, 2025

Alwin Kopse of Switzerland is the Chair of the Eleventh Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty (GB-11), a position he was unanimously elected to at the Tenth Session of the Governing Body in November 2023. We spoke with him about his longtime involvement with the Treaty, its significance, and its future.

When did you first become interested in plant genetic resources for food and agriculture? And what did you do before joining the world of food and agriculture?

I became involved in issues related to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture early in my professional career, as a lawyer and policy adviser at the nexus of biodiversity and economic affairs. But a long time before then, I remember walking over the fields as a little boy at my father’s side, and him asking me whether I knew the plants growing in the fields around us, and then telling me about them. He was a farmer’s son and wanted to pass on his interest in agriculture, crops and food to me. Obviously, he was successful!

How long have you been involved in the work of the International Treaty?

My time with the International Treaty started well before the Treaty came into being. My first encounter with it was during a meeting in the hills of Switzerland of the Working Group of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture that negotiated the text that would eventually become the International Treaty. That was well over 25 years ago now!

Why is the International Treaty important?

The importance of the International Treaty lays in the fact that it deals with a common concern of mankind and with one of the most fundamental matters when we talk about food and food security – the seeds! Without seeds, there is nothing, with seeds, everything.

The International Treaty helps prolong the ancient practice of exchanging seeds and plant material for breeding beyond national and geographic borders. Without this exchange, farmers and breeders would not be able to adapt their agricultural plants to a changing environment. They would not have been able to create the diversity we have today in the fields and in the genebanks. And we will need this diversity of plant genetic resources in breeding and farming to foster food security and nutrition in the coming years, when the planet’s climate changes, weather patterns become more unpredictable and new pests and diseases attack our plants.

All three pillars of the Treaty – the conservation, the sustainable use and the Multilateral System for facilitated access and benefit-sharing – play fundamental roles in this changing world. And let us not forget that Farmers’ Rights are embedded in the Treaty; they ensure that we work with and for farmers, the original guardians of agrobiodiversity.

You have been involved in the International Treaty for many years now, including Chairing various Committees. What was your impression of the interactions you had as a Treaty Committee Chair?

The people involved in the Committees are amazing. Despite sometimes difficult discussions, there has always been a willingness in the Committees to do the right thing for the Treaty, to listen to each other and to move forward on all sides: colleagues from Contracting Parties, from Observers, experts and last, but not least, from the Secretariat.

What, in your opinion, is the greatest impact that the International Treaty has had over the last 20 years? And whom has the Treaty impacted the most?

This is a difficult question to answer. But probably the Multilateral System has made the greatest impact with the many exchanges of material, together with the project cycles of the Benefit-sharing Fund. This is where the Treaty meets the people it works to serves: farmers, breeders and researchers all over the world. But I am sure that the Treaty has had many small and big impacts in various other ways too.

What key challenges have you observed with the implementation of the Treaty overall? And how can we overcome them?

Two things come to my mind: First, science moves faster than multilateralism. It is not easy to keep the Treaty instruments and tools up to what is needed today and tomorrow. We need to make the Treaty future-proof. And the second challenge is the little awareness of the Treaty and its fundamental importance for food security and nutrition beyond its community. If we as a community want to secure the funding needed to conserve and sustainably use the riches of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, we need to make the case of its importance for humankind more forcefully known beyond our Treaty community.

What are the major concrete steps that need to be taken in the next biennium – both by the Governing Body and the International Treaty community as a whole?

Assuming that the Governing Body at its eleventh session (GB-11) will succeed in enhancing the Multilateral System, the main focus will need to be on putting the new system in place. Contracting Parties will need to ratify the expanded scope of the Multilateral System, and the tools will need to be put in place to make the new SMTA operational. Hence, we need to mobilize all actors, from genebank managers, farmers and breeders to experts in Contracting Parties and relevant international organisations.

What ideas would you suggest for the International Treaty to achieve universality?

The International Treaty has all that is needed to achieve universality. We need to do our work: go out there and tell its story!

What message would you like to convey to the International Treaty community as we prepare for the Eleventh Session of the Governing Body?

The world needs a future-proof International Treaty, to contribute to food security and nutrition in a changing environment around the world. Feeding the world is dependent on using the riches that plant genetic resources for food and agriculture offer. We need clear simple and transparent rules that allow for facilitated exchange of these resources, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits for the good of farmers and everyone.

For more than 12 years, the International Treaty Community has been working on enhancing the Multilateral System and setting a funding target for the Benefit-sharing Fund. It is time to finalize this work at the Eleventh Session of the Governing Body. We cannot afford to fail a second time.

So, be inspired by other international bodies that demonstrated that it is possible to agree on solutions in a multilateral setting. They did it, and there is no reason why we should not be able to do it, too!  So, let’s do this together!

@PlantTreaty 

#ItAllStartsWithTheSeed

Website: http://www.fao.org

Published: March 7, 2025