South should beware of short selling seed collections

Plants need nursing for growth.

Lima, 9 July (TWN) – As discussion proceeds on enhancing the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing under the Plant Treaty, developing countries are under pressure by developed countries and their allies to trade off and set a price for their entire national collections of plant germplasm (seed collections), in return for “expectations” of increase in benefit sharing payments from seed companies.

There is no guarantee, however low the price may be, that the seed companies using the system will finally make the payments, as there are no monitoring and accountability measures to ensure the use of the seeds will result in benefit sharing.

The 14th meeting of the Ad Hoc Open Ended Working Group on Enhancement of the Multilateral System (MLS) of Access and Benefit Sharing (WG14) is taking place in Lima, Peru from 7 to 11 July. This Working Group was set up under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (commonly known as the Plant Treaty).

On the second day of the WG14 meeting, various rates for benefit sharing options were introduced by various regions, the highest being proposed by the GRULAC (Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries) and lowest being proposed by North America. Norway and the Africa Group proposed similar rates. Europe as a region said it aligns with North America’s proposed rates. Asian developing countries who are not willing to open up their entire plant germplasm collections did not propose any rates.

The rates are proposed in a draft package of measures to enhance the functioning of the MLS, being prepared by the Working Group for the consideration of the 11th Meeting of the Governing Body of the Plant Treaty in November.

North America and other developed countries kept reiterating that the MLS should be made attractive to seed companies and for the same reason, the system should give various options to access its seeds at minimal rates. Canada said alienating seed companies from gene banks by prescribing higher rates or other benefit sharing obligations would kill the “relevance of gene banks” and as gene bank managers, the people in the room will fail to convince governments to seek budget or other support for maintaining gene banks.

GRULAC’s proposed rates for various access options are as follows:

·  Full subscription to MLS seeds: 0.5% of the sales of all seeds of the seed company

·  Single access option, where commercialized seeds are not made available for further research and development: 5% of the sales of the seeds developed using the MLS and commercialized

·  Single access option, where commercialized seeds are available freely for research and development: 2% of the sales of the seeds developed using the MLS and commercialized.

North America’s proposals are as follows:

·  Full subscription to MLS seeds: 0.01% of the sales of all the seeds of the seed company

·  Partial subscription to MLS: 0.02% of the sales of all the seeds of the crop subscribed by the seed company

·  Single access option, where commercialized seeds are not made available for further research and development: 0.77% of the sales of the seeds developed using the MLS and commercialized

·  Single access option, where commercialized seeds are available freely for research and development: 0.07% of the sales of the seeds developed using the MLS and commercialized.

Norway and Africa proposed 0.1% of the sales of all the seeds of the seed company as the subscription rate.

GRULAC said as a region they have taken a very tough decision to fully open Annex 1, and in return they expect developed countries to commit to a mandatory subscription-only model, whereby upfront payments are ensured to the benefit sharing fund, which can be utilized to meet conservation costs of seeds. They said GRULAC through regional consultation calculated the cost of conservation and the numbers are based on the said need.

(Annex 1 currently contains a negotiated list of 64 crops and the Working Group is considering its expansion.)

North America told the developing countries, in particular responding to GRULAC’s proposal, that seed companies are not at all keen to use gene banks. We want the seed companies to come and use our materials and pay for such use. This means we have to make prices attractive to them. We will have to listen to those who will have to pay. The amount we want or what we need as gene bank managers is not material here.

Other developed countries and their stakeholder allies reaffirmed the argument and said it is national gene banks who want seed companies to use their seeds, and hence we cannot dictate terms.

Norway said their numbers are based on their experiences of contributing to the benefit sharing fund as a country, where they prioritize on-farm conservation of resources.

Farmers and Civil Society request not to fully open National Seed Collections

However, farmers’ organisations expressed discontent at the way the Working Group is progressing. Referring to Africa’s interventions, they said “let’s not trade the seeds away for the hope of a small amount of money”.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) representing several types of stakeholders warned governments against putting all their seed collections into the MLS that lack accountability, transparency and reliable tracking mechanisms. They pointed out various ways in which provider countries and communities lose opportunities in research partnerships, innovation, development and benefit sharing, and the perils of unaccountable and non-transparent functioning of the MLS.

“Even a 1% return from the global seed sector turnover —which far exceeds the current best scenario in the Co-chairs’ concept note— would still not justify opening up full national collections without legally binding accountability and transparency mechanisms” said the CSOs.

Currently, seeds are being contracted out for research and breeding from the MLS with no active tracking, monitoring and transparency requirements leading to a situation where the use of MLS seeds in new varieties of seeds developed and commercialized cannot be detected, unless there is disclosure by seed companies. In the past two decades of the Plant Treaty implementation only 5-6 users have shared monetary contributions although there were more than 25,000 recipients of seeds from MLS. Moreover, shared seeds can be used for all research and breeding for all food and feed purposes, but monetary benefits are sought only from seed sales.

At the same time, the MLS does not have measures to prevent diversion of resources to non-food/non-feed sectors. In fact, Treaty agencies like the International Agricultural Research Centres generate genetic sequence data from these seeds and make them available for anonymous use via the internet, serving the interests of industries outside the seed sector. There are also no new additional measures proposed in the draft package of measures to improve governance, accountability and transparency of the system.

CSOs also pointed out that the current functioning of the MLS disconnects between providers and recipients leading to erosion of several non-monetary benefits in terms of local research and innovation opportunities and therefore would not recommend making available all national collections through the MLS.

Africa calls for a Positive list Approach

Africa in their statement said, “Throughout the long and difficult negotiation period Africa has never seen convincing arguments let alone compelling evidence to demonstrate that full expansion of Annex 1 will lead to an enhanced functioning of the MLS.” However, Africa in principle proposes to have an open scope for Annex 1, where countries can periodically add more crops into a national list, from which seeds will be shared.

Africa said that a full expansion of Annex 1 does not have a definite list of species to refer to and Contracting Parties should be able to declare additional species they are including in the MLS (positive list) rather than the exclusions (negative list), which requires justification for exclusions. They argue a one-time negative list is against the principle of State Sovereignty over genetic resources.

Europe tried to get an affirmation from the users of Africa on whether they are in agreement with full expansion in principle and whether Africa is envisaging some sort of phased national implementation plan. Although Africa said yes, they made clear their position: “… the expansion of Annex I is contingent upon the establishment of a robust and predictable benefit-sharing mechanism founded on the sovereign right of Contracting Parties to determine which of their genetic resources are included in the Multilateral System”.

Africa said it looks forward to a process by which countries add crops into the MLS from time to time, rather than a one-time negative declaration, making every other resource outside of the negative list automatically part of the MLS.

Near East calls for a listed approach, Asia developing countries ask to wait

Near East representatives said it will be difficult for their governments to keep adding crops into the MLS unless it has a list of definite species. Therefore, they reiterated their preference to have a new Annex 1 list with more crops in it.

A Near East representative speaking with TWN said that they have been asking for a process by which the seed industry can provide a list of crops they are keenly interested in, so that the Working Group and countries can stop guessing that there is interest in all crops.

A developing country expert working in the field of conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) told TWN, “If such a list can be produced there will be a definite list and national gene banks could collect and develop PGRFA resources valued by the seed industries. To the contrary, the current approach is to fully expand the scope. By employing a negative list, the rest of the germplasm, which is not in the negative list, automatically becomes part of MLS. This is a tactic to extract resources from the South. You know the Treaty MLS lacks tracking mechanisms. Look at the irony, the very same governments are talking about making the MLS attractive to seed companies and asking us to be satisfied with some charity from seed companies… ‘7 million USD’ per annum is not going to change anything in Global South.” (The 7 million USD is the best-case scenario as per the Co-Chairs note.)

Asia on the other hand, is of the view that unless a fully operational enhanced MLS is seen, it will be difficult for them to consider expansion of Annex 1.

Commenting on these arguments, a developing country farmer told TWN, “It’s utterly meaningless for our countries to sacrifice our rights on genetic resources to a system that is not accountable and transparent to us. That too in order to maintain relevance and funding for gene banks in the Global North. Our farmers are not dependent on their gene banks or seed companies, they rely on locally produced seeds, including farmer-saved seeds and informal seed systems. If they want us to cooperate and share our genetic diversity with them for their food security, they need to hear us”.

*With inputs from the International Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC). – Third World Network