Implementing access and benefit sharing in eight countries

Since 2012, national teams in eight countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have been identifying options for policy, legal and administrative mechanisms for the implementation of the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing (MLS) for plant genetic resources. This article summarises if and how access and benefit sharing has been strengthened in the … Read more

Access and benefit sharing in participatory plant breeding in Southwest China

This contribution discusses access and benefit sharing within the context of participatory plant breeding. It presents how Chinese farmers and breeders collaborate in relation to crop improvement and on-farm maintenance of plant genetic resources. Based on more than a decade of action-research, a number of institutional changes were accomplished as a result of the interactions … Read more

Conclusions: Learning from farmer-led access and benefit sharing

This special issue of Farming Matters magazine has explored the ways in which access and benefit sharing of plant genetic resources can work for family farmers. On one hand it presents cases that demonstrate the limited extent to which family farmers have been able to benefit from the ‘formal’ ABS process: the rather complex arrangements … Read more