Plant Genetic Resources Policy in a Changing Climate

Abstract

Plant genetic resources domesticated and selected by generations of farmers have led to the development of modern agriculture. During this long period they have been moved to different parts of the world with human migrations, and in more recent years, they have been freely exchanged among plant breeders. With this history, an FAO Undertaking in 1983 described plant genetic resources as a common heritage of mankind. All this was to change, however, with the adoption of the Biological Diversity Convention at a United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. The Conference declared that the plant genetic resources are the sovereign property of the country in whose territory they are found and that access to them should be negotiated between the donor and the recipient country. An International Seed Treaty, which the FAO Commission on Plant Genetic Resources helped to negotiate in 2004, incorporates this concept. Even as the provisions of the Biological Diversity Convention come in force, climate change has become a major factor in world agriculture with focus shifting to crop varieties, which would be resilient to drought, floods, high temperatures and other adverse conditions. It is argued in this paper that plant genetic resources in the form of landraces and local varieties developed over thousands of years in stress environments can provide valuable genetic diversity for the development of such varieties. A rethink of the policy governing the management and the exchange of plant genetic resources and of the mandate of the world’s gene banks is proposed.