This Bioversity International-led research effort aims to increase countries’ overall participation in the multilateral system for access and benefit sharing, both as providers and recipients of plant genetic resources. Additionally, the research seeks to pursue options for the eight countries to benefit from other aspects of the Treaty, in particular technology transfers.

National research teams in Bhutan, Nepal, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Uganda, Costa Rica and Guatemala consist of the national Treaty focal point, national gene bank staff, and researchers from government and non-governmental organisations. Farmer organisations participated in some of the research activities.

The teams have conducted research on a number of topics relevant to access and benefit sharing: policy actor networks related to the national implementation of the Treaty; germplasm flows and national dependence on ‘foreign germplasm,’ particularly for climate change adaptation; linkages between the Treaty and the multilateral system (see page 10) and farmers’ management of plant genetic diversity through the lens of community seed banks, and technology transfer (as a non-monetary benefit under the Treaty). In the eight countries, the practical implementation process has followed a participatory, multi-stakeholder approach aimed at building a common understanding and broad support for implementation of the Treaty and the multilateral system. Farmer organisations participated in activities such as field research, training workshops, farmer to farmer exchanges, policy dialogues and conferences.

Paving the way for access

In order to prepare countries for regulatory frameworks that could help make access and benefit sharing work in practice, the teams analysed whether there was legal space for the implementation of the MLS and identified options for the revision of the relevant policies, laws, and/or other instruments when there was no legal space. They also developed draft amendments to these instruments that were subsequently introduced into the formal policy making processes of the relevant organisations and political bodies in each country. As part of this process, they clarified who in the country has authority to consider requests for access to plant genetic resources in the multilateral system (MLS) and what kind of procedures should be used. They identified the plant genetic resources in the country that are ‘under the management and control of the contracting party and in the public domain’ (as stated in the Treaty), which is a requisite to inform potential users about the germplasm included in the MLS.

This work led to concrete policy changes, such as a revision of the 2003 Biodiversity Act in Bhutan, new access and benefit sharing (draft) laws in Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Guatemala and Rwanda, a revised agrobiodiversity policy and act in Nepal, and new national environment (access to genetic resources and benefit sharing) regulations and a ‘temporary procedure’ for accessing plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in Uganda. By December 2015, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nepal, Rwanda and Uganda had prepared lists of accessions to be included in the MLS and notifications sent or being prepared to be sent to the Treaty secretary. These achievements pave the way for breeders, farmers and other users to request and obtain germplasm from distant locations for the purposes defined by the Treaty.

Understanding international dependence

In the aforementioned countries we carried out additional studies about the introduction and domestication processes of key food security crops at national level – an often poorly recognised form of access and benefit sharing. This research contributed to an increased awareness of each country’s dependency on international germplasm exchanges for their agricultural development and food security. Previously, this fact was perhaps known to a handful of people through advanced studies or work experience, in particular gene bank managers and breeders.

The improved rice variety developed in Nepal, Khumal-4, is a telling example. If this variety had not been developed and promoted using foreign sourced germplasm (the variety IR-28), it may have been more prone to disease and pests, and have lower yields. Thus, family farmers benefit directly from having access to germplasm that has good adaptive capacity. An estimated 70% of rice varieties released in Nepal contain genes from foreign sources, which has been highly beneficial for rice production and food security in the country. Not having access to new germplasm could result in considerable monetary and non-monetary losses for the country. We had very similar findings concerning rice cultivation in Bhutan.

The roles of community seed banks

In order to identify ways to strengthen the utility of the Treaty for family farmers, in particular through providing access to better adapted seeds, we reviewed the functions of community seed banks. A community seed bank is a form of farmer organisation closely aligned with the objectives of the Treaty. They are mostly informal institutions that are locally governed and managed that have the core function of maintaining seeds for local use. We found that community seed banks perform a broad range of functions including awareness raising and education about the importance of conserving agricultural biodiversity, documentation of traditional knowledge and information, the collection, production, distribution and exchange of seeds, and sharing of knowledge and experience. However, to date community seed banks have not benefitted directly from the Treaty and the multilateral system.

Our inventory found that community seed banks usually have a seed storage facility collectively managed by the farming community. This represents a community level ex situ facility, similar to that of a national or international gene bank. In practice, except for a few cases, community seed banks store seeds only for one season and regenerate seeds each year through various mechanisms. For example, the community seed bank in Bara, Nepal, establishes more than 80 local rice varieties in an appropriate area each year to characterise and multiply seeds for the next season. At the same time, they also distribute seeds of each local variety to one or more members on a loan basis, so that the bank has two sources of new seeds each year.

Some community seed banks are continuously working on broader issues such as empowerment of farming communities, promotion of ecological agriculture, participatory plant breeding and grassroots breeding activities, establishing farmers’ rights over seeds and development of fair community level benefit sharing mechanisms that may arise from the use of plant genetic resources, for example, through formal collaboration agreements with the national gene bank, such as the collaborations under development in Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Nepal, Rwanda and Uganda.

Community seed banks perform a broad range of functions

In Uganda, the country team decided to explore using the multilateral system to provide new germplasm to one of the community seed banks. The team used climate change scenario analysis and crop suitability modelling applied to beans (a key crop for farmers’ livelihoods) to identify bean accessions with good climate adaptation potential from three sources: (i) the national gene banks in Rwanda and Uganda, (ii) communities in both countries and (iii) international gene banks. In 2014, the first phase of participatory field trials with farmers using materials from the national gene banks and locally adapted material was realised. A total of 20 varieties were evaluated (and ranked) by farmers for climate resilience and other desirable traits. Accessions from international gene banks were obtained in 2015 through the MLS and are now being multiplied for future testing in farmers’ fields.

Technology transfer: nonmonetary benefit sharing

Country teams conducted studies to analyse technology transfer practices and knowledge needs related to the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources. Technology transfer, as described in the Treaty, is considered to be a major non-monetary benefit to be realised through a variety of forms of international cooperation between and among actors with an interest in plant genetic resources. Experiences have been mixed, some giving satisfactory results, with some ending in failure.

If we look at Guatemala, some of the operations of five technologies generated or transferred by the Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology (ICTA) were successful, others less so. For example, the development and use of the ICTA Ligero bean variety is considered a success due to the collaboration between CIAT, a regional breeding programme (PROFRIJOL), and ICTA. Farmers are using the new bean variety widely, a result achieved through a strong network of national partnerships in which farmer organisations were a key actor. However, the hybrid maize variety ICTA MayaQPM is hardly being used by farmers for a number of reasons, including the high cost of buying seeds year after year, the variety’s susceptibility to pest and disease, and a lack of appeal to consumers.

Similarly, in Burkina Faso we found that the key factors constraining technology transfers are lack of financial means, the high cost of technologies, and weak links between farmers’ organisations and technology providers. We also found key elements for effective non-monetary benefit sharing of technologies: the capacity of farmers’ organisations to reach out to many farmers at the same time, participatory technology needs assessments, development of local fora where stakeholders involved in the concerned technology can meet and discuss needs and interests, and appropriate training and the establishment of demonstration plots around the country.

Prospects

Although significant progress in the eight countries has been made, improving access in particular, national implementation of ABS under the Treaty is still quite weak. This suggests that more support for countries with lacking implementation capacities is necessary in the coming years. In many countries, national policy makers, farmers and other agricultural stakeholders face the challenge of enhancing access and benefit sharing to genetic resources, information and technologies. They must deal with these challenges urgently in the context of the need to adapt to climate changes. The central role of family farmers must remain key in this process. One of the emerging lessons is that research and capacity building for developing policies, laws and administrative guidelines and their effective implementation are essential for improving access and benefit sharing.

Ronnie Vernooy (r.vernooy@cgiar.org) is genetic resources policy specialist, Bioversity International, Italy
Michael Halewood (m.halewood@cgiar.org) is leader of the policies, institutions and monitoring component at Bioversity International, Italy
Isabel López-Noriega (i.lopez@cgiar.org) is legal specialist at Bioversity International, Switzerland
Gloria Otieno (g.otieno@cgiar.org) is associate expert genetic resources and food security policy, Bioversity International, Uganda
Isabel Lapeña (isalapena@gmail.com) is an independent consultant based in Spain
Raymond Vodouhe (r.vodohue@cgiar.org) is genetic diversity specialist at Bioversity International
Benin Guy Bessette (gbessette3@gmail.com) is an independent consultant based in Canada

The post Implementing access and benefit sharing in eight countries appeared first on Ileia.

At the end of the 1990s, an assessment of the impact on smallholder farming in Southwest China of maize varieties released by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) concluded that there had been a systematic separation of the formal seed system and farmers’ seed systems. Varieties that were bred and released by scientific institutions were almost never adopted by farmers in the remote mountainous regions of the Southwest due to their poor adaptability to local agroecological conditions.

At the same time, however, the assessment documented for the first time the local diversity of maize landraces that had been conserved in the farming communities studied, with more than 80% of farmers’ seed being supplied by their own seed systems. Inspired by this, researchers of the Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) decided to set up a participatory plant breeding project in order to research the usefulness of local varieties in scientific breeding. Such varieties include farmer improved open pollinated varieties and landraces. The researchers also set out to explore the possibilities for adapting formally released varieties to local conditions.

This project started in 2000 and focused on the province of Guangxi (Southwest China), with the active collaboration of farmers in six villages, maize breeders from the Guangxi Maize Research Institute (GMRI, the provincial public breeding institute) and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS, the national public breeding institute).

Funding came from the International Development Research Centre of Canada and the Ford Foundation with facilitation provided by sociologists and policy researchers of CCAP in Beijing.

Key role of farmer-breeders

Breeders of both the provincial and national breeding institutes reported that the genetic base of maize hybrids had become dangerously narrow, which renders crops more vulnerable to pests and diseases, especially in the face of climate change. These breeders were invited to farmers’ fields to discover for themselves farmers’ skills, knowledge and expertise in managing genetic diversity. Later in the process, farmers brought their varieties to CAAS and GMRI and shared their knowledge and experiences in seed selection. During the exchange visits the ‘professional’ breeders discovered that the farmers had conserved and improved Tuxpeño 1 (an open pollinated maize variety released much earlier by CIMMYT). They also learned that one farmer in particular, known as Aunt Pan from Wentan village, had improved a locally important variety of Tuxpeño 1 that had become widely popular in the surrounding local communities. Due to these interactions, they began to realise that the local landraces that had been conserved on-farm in the Guangxi communities could be a potential source of valuable new breeding material for professional breeders in the country.

The breeders from the national and provincial institutes gradually acknowledged and appreciated that local farmers could become valuable partners in seed development and improvement. As a result, Aunt Pan joined the research team to continue improving Tuxpeño 1. From 2000 to 2004, the project gradually became a research programme funded in part with Chinese resources, while the research team extended its activities to new communities in Guangxi and to two additional provinces in the Southwest: Yunnan and Guizhou.

These communities were situated in more remote areas. Farmers in these villages reportedly conserved an even larger diversity of landraces. In some of the communities, the research team identified other experienced farmer-breeders, such as in Stone Village in Yunnan. These farmer-breeders are continuing and expanding the crop improvement efforts first started in Guangxi, with women playing a central role. Farmers in the participating villages benefited from the experiments as they got access to improved seeds and were able to exchange these with farmers in surrounding villages, increasing the reach of benefits.

Testing the varieties beyond Guangxi

In 2003, with the support of the participatory plant breeding team, GMRI breeders allowed the first participatory bred variety Xin Mo 1 (an OPV) into the formal testing procedure for their value for cultivation and use (VCU test). There are two levels of VCU testing in China – one at the national level and one the provincial level. Xin Mo 1 was entered into the national testing procedure. In the Northern provinces it was entered at provincial level. However, likely due to different agroecological conditions, it did not perform as well as in the original trial villages of Guangxi and hence failed the VCU test.

As a result, the team reflected on the challenges to the registration of their products. They decided that henceforth open pollinated varieties would be released only in the trial villages and their neighbouring communities. The setback motivated the team to add a new research component to the program: a systematic review of national policies and laws impacting crop conservation and improvement with particular interest to finding legal space for variety release at subnational levels (see Selected Books).

Another important result of the programme was the release of a hybrid waxy maize variety, Guinuo 2006, in 2003. The variety had successfully passed VCU tests in a trial village and was registered through the GMRI. The subsequent commercialisation of Guinuo 2006 by a GMRI-owned seed company generated significant financial benefits for the professional breeders as it soon became one of the most popular waxy varieties on regional seed markets. Unfortunately, the farmerbreeders did not receive any of these financial benefits.

Farmers’ Rights

When Guinuo 2006 penetrated the commercial market the farmers who had participated in the adaptation testing of Guinuo 2006 became aware of the costs of purchasing their seed at market price. The team realised that it was unfair that the farmers who had contributed to seed development had to pay for using the seed. In order to help farmers save on the cost of seed and as a way to redirect benefits to the farmers participating in the participatory breeding project, the team initiated community based seed production of Guinuo 2006 in a number of trial villages in Guangxi. The seeds were produced and sold by the farmers, who now make some money from their sales and no longer have to buy seeds.

A unique benefit sharing agreement

In order to create some legal space for the community based seed production of Guinuo 2006, the team facilitated an agreement among GMRI breeders, the GMRI-owned seed company and the seed production villages. This initiative, a first in China and perhaps the world, was generally welcomed and the negotiations resulted in an agreement to share the financial benefits. The GMRI breeding institute and the associated seed company would supply the commercial market while allowing the farmers participating in the project to produce seed for local niche markets, such as the remote areas of Guangxi and nearby Southwest provinces, with the price set by farmers.

This unique agreement was based on the breeders’ desire to galvanise the existing mutual trust with farmer-breeders. As one of them explained: “We have collaborated with these farmers for a long time, we trust them as friends, and we would like to grant them small scale seed production in their communities.” Farmers expressed that they highly appreciated the support given by the professional breeders, which they consider a recognition of farmers’ contributions to the development of the new variety.

Fifteen years of field and policy research has resulted in a growing recognition of the synergies that can be created between the formal and informal seed systems in China

The post Access and benefit sharing in participatory plant breeding in Southwest China appeared first on Ileia.

Formal access and benefit sharing processes are anchored in what may termed the international ‘ABS regime’, which consists of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Nagoya Protocol and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). Both the CBD and the Treaty recognise the role of indigenous groups and family farmers in the conservation and sustainable use of (agro)biodiversity, and both support ABS arrangements, albeit differently. The contributions in this special issue demonstrate that despite the existence of this ABS regime, indigenous groups and family farmers have so far received very limited material and immaterial support from it, due to political, legal and bureaucratic complexities and hurdles, lack of national implementation capacities, and costly operational procedures. At the same time, much can be learned from traditional and newly emerging forms of farmer-centred principles and practices for access and benefit sharing.

Collaboration

The experiences presented here provide valuable insights about what elements of a formal ABS system may work for family farmers. Central to effective ABS arrangements are the practices of collaboration of farmer networks and community seed banks with state actors or professional breeders – in some cases under the CBD and the Nagoya Protocol, and only recently emerging under the Treaty.

A fundamental factor of success is putting farmers at the centre of such collaborations, such as in the case of seed development and improvement seen in China. ‘Professional’ breeders from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (the national public breeding institute) and the Guangxi Maize Research Institute are working with farmers to improve an open pollinated maize variety. Farmers benefit through the recognition of their expertise, improved availability of and access to quality seeds from both institutes, income generated from seed production and marketing, and the provision of scientific and technical knowhow through collaboration with the formal seed sector.

A fundamental factor of success is putting farmers at the centre of ABS collaborations with state actors or professional breeders

Under certain circumstances, access and benefit sharing mechanisms can also be established through collaborations of private parties and farmers, as the unique participatory plant breeding tradition based on farmer-selected potato varieties in the Netherlands demonstrates. It is important to note however that a major reason for the success of this initiative is the specific historical context of the Dutch agricultural sector. Decades of public investment in breeding has fostered relationships between farmers and public and private sector breeders.

Collaborations are also successful when they make collections of genetic resources of key crops accessible to family farmers, especially in cases where farmers have little access to quality seed. The initiative of coffee farmers in Costa Rica demonstrates the positive impact of facilitated access of farmers and breeders to the germplasm of horticultural crops. Access to diverse crops is of strategic importance to farmers as it enhances their resilience to climate change and other shocks. This experience points to the need to include horticultural food crops in the multilateral system of the Treaty.

Local community organisations

This publication furthermore highlights how local community organisations can and must play a leading role in the maintenance of the rich bio-cultural heritage embodied in local varieties. State authorities can support such civil society networks in the construction of seed security systems that allow family farmers to build their own food and nutrition strategies as well as increasing their resilience.

An example comes from Paraíba, Brazil, where the state government launched a seed bank policy in order to reinforce existing community seed banks, and donated stocks of seeds as an incentive for communities to construct new seed banks. When local varieties became formally recognised by the national government in 2003, the door was opened to more progressive innovations in the government seed programme. This could only happen through coordinated efforts of farmer networks, government institutions and scientists.

Simplifying the system

Research and capacity building initiatives, such as a Bioversity-led project in eight countries, make an effort to identify ways to strengthen the usefulness of ITPGRFA for farmers. Although significant progress has been made, the project reveals that progress in national implementation of ABS regulation under the Treaty is modest, especially with regards to benefit sharing. In an interview, François Meienberg echoes this observation, noting that under the Treaty’s Benefit Sharing Fund to date no mandatory payment has been made that would allow the sharing of benefits with farmers. This can be considered an injustice created by the system.

François Meienberg proposes to simplify the system: corporations that want to access genetic resources under the multilateral system should contribute a fixed benefit sharing payment on an annual basis. Despite the shortcomings, the Treaty remains important as it offers a legal basis to compel industrial agriculture to repay its dues whenever it sells seeds in a member country, as argued by Guy Kastler. The time has come to make concrete proposals to improve implementation of the Treaty.

Self-organised mechanisms

What emerges from the various contributions is that self-organised access and benefit sharing mechanisms can be highly effective for family farmers. Examples are innovative farmer-led seed banking and plant breeding initiatives. They are often based on long standing customary practices and enable family farmers to develop, exchange, sell and use traditional and region specific seed varieties.

In some cases, community seed banks provide an alternative to an ABS regime and may be more effective in protecting biodiversity and encouraging farmers to contribute to the genepool than the formal system. This is the case in India, where Farmers’ Rights are embedded in national law, but implementation poses challenges because of the regulations on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights. In this context of an emerging ABS regime, the TheruBeedi Seed Bank turns out to be very effective in ensuring access and benefit sharing for family farmers. This is also true in Zimbabwe, where smallholder farmers hardly benefit from formal ABS agreements. The Community Technology Development Trust supports alternative mechanisms that have resulted in a substantial increase of farmers’ access to seed diversity and their ability to share in the benefits of the continuing cycles of seed conservation.

Similarly, in the Ecuadorian provinces of Bolivar, Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, family farmers are creating new initiatives and capacity to conserve and use the biodiversity on their farmland through agroecological practices. They are gaining greater access to and control over their biological resources while increasing resilience and food sovereignty. Women in particular have gained greater appreciation within their communities due to their abilities to conserve and improve varieties and seeds and maintain an informal culture of free access and sharing of seed through a mechanism referred to as ‘pass the gift’. In these initiatives, concepts of distributive justice, reciprocity and equity are some of the guiding principles used by family farmers for access and benefit sharing.

Rooting the system

It turns out that access and benefit sharing is a highly complex matter, especially when it comes to supporting family farmers. We may conclude here that the success of an ABS system not only depends on creating fair and effective institutions and rules, but most of all on learning from and strengthening existing (and sometimes longstanding) ABS-mechanisms at a local or regional level. Family farmers can collaborate in their own way, developing their own access and benefit sharing mechanisms. Research and public institutions can play a important role by strengthening them, either through collaborations or through formal policy, which can be beneficial for all parties involved.

In this sense, it is notable that new civil society networks are emerging to ensure access and benefit sharing for family farmers, be it in the form of seed networks, farmer communities, or the agroecology movement. In the light of a trend towards legislation that could severely undermine farmer seed systems, such as is occurring in Africa, these networks at local, national and even global levels hold great promise for ensuring that farmers can continue to be the world’s custodians of genetic resources. The ‘formal’ ABS system could be more effective for family farmers if it becomes firmly rooted in such networks- both longstanding and newly emerging community based seed networks.

Robin Pistorius, Janneke Bruil and Ronnie Vernooy are the editors of the special issue of Farming Matters: Access and benefit sharing of genetic resources. Making it work for family farmers.

Robin Pistorius (pistorius@facts-of-life.nl) is an independent consultant and guest lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Janneke Bruil (j.bruil@ileia.org) is Coordinator Learning and Advocacy at ILEIA, the Centre for learning on sustainable agriculture in Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Ronnie Vernooy (r.vernooy@cgiar.org) is Genetic Resources Policy Specialist at Bioversity International, Italy

The post Conclusions: Learning from farmer-led access and benefit sharing appeared first on Ileia.