CGIAR under pressure to support seed treaty

Nature Biotechnology | February 2002

CGIAR UNDER PRESSURE TO SUPPORT SEED TREATY

Anna Meldolesi

Rome -- After seven years of negotiation, an International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture was adopted by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in November 2001.

Despite nominal support, the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR; Washington, DC), which maintains up to 50% of the world's unduplicated seed samples, is facing political pressure to participate actively in the treaty and is set to discuss the implications at a high-level meeting on 18?20 February.

The aim of the treaty is to provide effective legal rules to free up the exchange of seeds between countries for breeding and GM crop development, but the issue of plant genetic resources has been heavily influenced by the nongovernmental organization (NGO) campaign against biopiracy. Policy analysts say the result is an ambiguous text that could actually jeopardize the equitable use of germ plasm and, once ratified, could herald a significant loss of autonomy for CGIAR centers and burden them with overwhelming responsibilities.

There has been a slump in growth of global seed collections and access to them since the early 1990s, when many gene banks simply thought that they had sufficient samples after 20 years of collecting. The problem was exacerbated at the time by an NGO-fuelled anti-biopiracy campaign, which resulted in national laws (based on the Convention on Biological Diversity) restricting access to many seed collections -- a point the FAO has focused on in pushing for this treaty.

The new treaty establishes a communal collection of 35 food and 29 feed crops (called the Multilateral System), samples of which are to be provided by the national gene banks of ratifying countries. The CGIAR, which was set up to secure food and eradicate poverty in developing countries, supports 16 International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs), and article 15 of the treaty explicitly calls upon IARCs to place their samples (over 600,000) in the treasury.

To encourage gene-rich developing countries to participate, any company that commercializes a new variety developed from a sample in the Multilateral System will have to pay a royalty into a fund to benefit members and preserve biodiversity. However, the details of tax tariffs, benefit sharing, and how all of this will be policed are not addressed in the treaty, and a Governing Body of representatives of ratifying countries is to be set up (when the treaty comes into force) to work out these and other issues.

Because such details are unclear, some developing countries have refused to include their most valuable crops, such as soybean (China), groundnut (Latin America), and tropical forage grasses (Africa). Ironically, such countries have also called for restricted intellectual property rights (IPR) on resources in the Multilateral System. However, landraces are already considered to have limited present value for commercial purposes because they require the investment of a great deal of time and effort to find useful traits for integration into improved varieties; and the private sector may be even less interested unless the treaty's fuzzy reference to the patenting of isolated genes is clarified. Specifically, article 12.3(d) says that recipients of communal plant genetic resources shall not claim IPR on those resources or their genetic parts or components in the form received from the Multilateral System. Victoria Henson-Apollonio, senior research officer for IPR at the CGIAR Central Advisory Service, thinks that it will be difficult for the Governing Body to clarify the meaning of this article. But unless this happens, it is impossible to say if the treaty benefits do overcome the risks, comments Bernard Le Buanec, secretary general of Assinsel, which represents more than 1,000 breeding companies worldwide.

Indeed, this article was the reason that the US and Japan -- both major CGIAR contributors -- were the sole abstainers when the treaty was adopted, and several other developed countries remain concerned about the article.

Whatever the Governing Body does, many NGOs are interpreting the treaty as no-patents-on-life; but there will always be a loophole that nobody can block over national or repatriated samples, says Dave Wood, an independent, genetic resource policy analyst.

This could be highly problematic for CGIAR, because IARCs have massive responsibilities for tracking the use of their own specimens; having to form different sets of rules for ratifying and non-ratifying countries would complicate matters considerably. There will be a mounting pressure on the CGIAR to act as the policeman of global germplasm, a job that it was not designated for, says Wood. The treaty is silent on terms of germplasm access for nonmembers, and we don't know yet how many countries will ratify. What if other key countries that are IARC partners around the world decide to stay out? Henson-Apollonio adds, It would be ethically difficult, if not impossible, for the centers to treat countries on a differential basis.

There is also considerable uncertainty over what the IARCs are expected to contribute to the Multilateral System. Since 1994, after the anti-biopiracy campaign during which NGOs criticized the World Bank's influence on CGIAR, samples from all IARC collections have been under FAO auspices. It is not clear whether their more valuable enhanced breeding lines that are not in FAO trust will be eligible, and whether IARCs are required to contribute all their plant genetic resources, not just those crops listed in the treaty.

Despite these potential problems and although it is not legally obliged to do so, the CGIAR is under increasing political pressure from governments and NGOs to comply with the treaty. Developed countries want to keep the IARCs in the multilateral system of the treaty [because of their extensive collections], says René Poismans, who represents Belgium in treaty negotiations. Indeed, there are rumors that several European countries will halt funding to centers that do not support the treaty. (Poismans notes that because IARCs don't own their collections, just manage them on behalf of the international community, it is not clear what would happen to collections if the centers were to refuse.)

Moreover, NGO influence on the proceedings is evident. The IPGRI, the Rome-based plant genetic resource center that represented IARCs in treaty negotiations, is insisting that the CGIAR comply. The last thing anybody wants is a return to the days of the '80s and early '90s when the centers were being widely accused by many developing countries and NGOs of biopiracy, says Geoffrey Hawtin, director general of IPGRI. Notably, CGIAR's IPGRI-appointed representative during treaty negotiations is Cary Fowler, a leading promoter of that smear campaign when he was at the activist group Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI; Canada).

Fowler is eager for the centers to join up, and RAFI (which recently changed its name to ETC Group) says that IARCs have little choice but to participate in the treaty. It is even urging governments that IARC gene banks must become the legal property of the Governing Body and that funds to maintain the collections that presently go to individual IARCs should go instead to the Governing Body.

The treaty will come into force when it has been ratified by 40 governments-- something that could take at least two years. But FAO/IARC agreements are due for renewal this year, and the centers have been asked to sign new agreements with the FAO commission on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, which will act as the treaty's Interim Committee until the Governing Body is formed. Obviously a decision will have to be taken at the time of signing the new agreements with FAO or the Governing Body whether or not they are in the best interest of developing countries and the achievement of CGIAR's scientific and humanitarian mission, says Hawtin. The hope is that, in the meantime, some of the political heat will go out of debate and many of the outstanding issues for the centers will be resolved in negotiating these new agreements. But Wood is not so confident: Viable and equitable alternatives to global control over germplasm exist, but there is a growing problem of infiltration of CGIAR genetic resource policy fora by NGO activists, and I doubt the IARCs' ability to get their act together almost overnight after many years of over-centralized policy-making on germplasm.

© 2002 Nature Publishing Group