Conservation Crossroads

Crop science and global food security stand at an historic crossroads. This may one day be remembered as the time when the world followed the right road, finally ensuring that people could use crop diversity to improve their lives far into the future.

The journey started at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, which adopted the Convention on Biological Diversity. Ironically, recognition of the importance of biodiversity for the world's future grew in tandem with countries' reluctance to share that biodiversity. Heretofore considered the common heritage of humanity, crop germplasm had been exchanged easily and largely without restriction. The Convention changed all that with its assertion of national sovereignty over biodiversity. Newly aware of the value of their biodiversity, and often unversed regarding the special nature of agricultural biodiversity, some countries began to limit access.

At the same time, the renegotiation of the 1983 International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources was getting under way at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. This was both to bring it in line with the Convention and to address the disposition of collections in the genebanks of the Centers supported by the CGIAR. Although these collections are generally counted among the world's most important, they fell outside of the Convention insofar as the Centers could not sign it. The Centers had, however, signed temporary agreements with FAO in 1994 to place the collections in trust for the world community. The permanent status of the collections would have to be determined in the context of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which was to succeed the Undertaking.

After 7 years of difficult negotiations, the new Treaty was adopted in November 2001 and entered into force in June 2004. A central plank is the so-called Multilateral System designed to facilitate parties' access to plant diversity for food and agriculture, while allowing the fair sharing of benefits arising from its use. The Multilateral System covers about 64 crops and forages, including the plants providing 80% of the calories consumed by humans. The Governing Body of the Treaty, composed of the countries that have ratified it, set out the conditions for access and benefit sharing under the Multilateral System in a binding contract: the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA). New, permanent agreements to replace the 1994 FAO-Center agreements and confirm the in-trust status of the collections held by CGIAR Centers were signed in 2006. Most Centers started using the SMTA on 1 January 2007. By 1 August, the Centers had distributed nearly 98,000 samples of crops in the Multilateral System. The Centers also agreed to distribute the products of their own research under the SMTA, significantly boosting the range of materials available to the Multilateral System.

Meanwhile, in 1996, 150 countries adopted the first Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which lists 20 agreed priority activities. Significantly, it calls for a rational global system of conservation and use based on the principles of effectiveness, efficiency and transparency. It urged countries to consider the benefits of multilateral cooperation and of sharing roles and responsibilities in the conservation and use of crop diversity.

Another important parallel development was the decision to establish the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a permanent funding mechanism for ex situ conservation. The goal of the Trust is to promote and support the development of a global system for conservation and use and to financially back the operations of key elements of that system. The Trust is essential to funding the Treaty in line with a technical blueprint provided by the Global Plan of Action, in particular its call for a rational global system.

While no firm agreement defines the boundaries of such a system, significant progress has been made in advancing the sort of collaborative arrangements that may one day lie at its heart. The Trust supports a massive regeneration exercise now getting under way, as well as a comprehensive global information system that will allow genebanks worldwide to be searched for traits to combat new diseases and cope with climate change - a sure stimulus for international cooperation.

Building a rational global system for conserving and using crop diversity remains an uphill battle. How it will function, and how it will be monitored and its impact measured, have yet to be determined. The CGIAR Centers strongly support its development and implementation based on the principles of collaboration and cost effectiveness.