Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations  
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

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    The Inventory

    This online version of the Inventory presents, for each measure, the title and a brief description with information on implementing organization(s), start year, objectives, core elements, key outcomes, and, if applicable, lessons learned. It thus allows users to quickly identify those examples that may be of interest to them. A hyperlink to the original submission is provided, which includes additional information, such as on the history and context of the presented measure, challenges encountered, or target groups reached. In this way, users can get a more comprehensive idea of the measure in question and the specific context for which it was developed.
     
    To facilitate navigation, the Inventory is subdivided into eleven categories. Measures or practices that fall under more than one category are listed under each one that applies. Furthermore, information is provided on the type(s) of measures that are typically involved, such as technical, administrative, legal, and/or others, and on the relevant sub-article of Article 9 that is addressed. Additional search options allow searching by country, region, free text and keyword.
     
     
     
     
     
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    Number of records: 234

    136) Implementation of the program Bioeconomy Brazil Sociobiodiversity

    During the past two decades, the Brazilian government has implemented policies addressing concerns of smallholder farmers, indigenous people and traditional communities living in close relation with biodiversity. In 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply, launched the Bioeconomy Brazil Sociobiodiversity program. The program aims at promoting partnerships between the government, family farmers, small scale and medium-scale farmers, traditional communities and their enterprises, and the business sector. The programme further aims at promoting the sustainable use of sociobiodiversity and extractive resources, as well as the production and use of energy from renewable resources, while allowing the participation of the communities living closely with biodiversity in the productive and economic arrangements through the concept of bioeconomy. The program axes comprised of (i) productive structuring of the extractivism chains; (ii) medicinal, aromatics, condiment herbs and special teas of Brazil; (iii) sociobiodiversity routes; (iv) potentialities of Brazilian agrobiodiversity; and (v) renewable energy for family farming. With these axes, the Ministry intends to raise the income-generating capacity of farmers through the aggregated values of biodiversity.

    Category: 3.Approaches to encourage income-generating activities to support farmers’ conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA

    Type of measure/practice: Technical; Administrative

    137) Smallholder farmers’ capacity building on community seed banking

    Seed Savers Network-Kenya (SSN-Kenya) is a national grassroots farmers’ organization dedicated to promoting food and seed sovereignty. SSN-Kenya safeguards plant genetic materials through on-farm seed saving, community seed banks, and field genebanks for agrobiodiversity conservation. It has a network of over 50,000 farmers across five counties in Kenya, including Nakuru, Nyandarua, Kiambu, Baringo, and Kakamega in seed saving at farm level, ecological Agriculture, capacity building, community biodiversity register (CBR), open-source seed system (OSSS) and Advocacy for food sovereignty. In its12 years of existence, more than 60 000 small-scale farmers have been trained and empowered in crop diversification using locally available seeds and soil fertility amendments. SSN-Kenya has established 100 community seed banks in different villages of Kenya, where each seed bank covers at least 600 people in a village. Through their various capacity-building activities for the farmers, they saved more than 300 varieties of seeds that may have been lost. More importantly, they improved the food supply to more than 20 000 households and thus lower food insecurity cases while improving health through consumption of more nutritious diets from their farms.

    Category: 9.Training, capacity development and public awareness creation

    Type of measure/practice: Technical

    138) Recognition of farming communities through Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)

    Since 2005, the Agricultural Planning, Economic and Rural Development Research Institute (APERDRI), a public research institute under the Ministry of Agriculture, together with the provincial local government units, farming communities and the World Agricultural Heritage Foundation (WAHF), have engaged in identifying Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in Iran. The overall goal of GIAHS is to mobilize global recognition and national support for farmers’ and indigenous communities’ contributions to safeguarding and dynamically conserving agricultural biodiversity and their goods and services. In the course of the identification process, farming systems are assessed based on five criteria, including their contributions to (1) food and livelihood security; (2) biodiversity for food and agriculture ; (3) local and traditional knowledge systems; (4) culture, value systems and social organization; and (5) remarkable landscapes features. Farming systems that pass the assessment can be recognized as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Iran is a country with a long history of agricultural civilization; to date, three traditional agriculture: Saffron Qanat-based Agricultural Heritage System; Pomegranate Qanat irrigated Agricultural Heritage System; and MA layer Grape Production, are recognized as GIAHS sites.

    Category: 1.Recognition of local and indigenous communities’, farmers’ contributions to conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA, such as awards and recognition of custodian/guardian farmers

    Type of measure/practice: Technical; Others

    139) Declaration of the territory of the Cotacachi canton, Ecuador, as cultural heritage for agrobiodiversity

    The declaration of the territory of the Cotacachi canton, Ecuador, as cultural heritage for agrobiodiversity was started in 2010 and accomplished in 2014, following years of preparatory work done by the Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi (UNORCAC), an association of farmers’ and indigenous peoples’ organizations, in collaboration with the Municipal Government of Cotacachi. The main objective is to promote agrobiodiversity conservation, along with related traditional knowledge and ancestral practices, as a strategy to defend collective economic, social and cultural rights of the indigenous communities of Cotacachi. Core components include the declaration of the territory as cultural heritage for agrobiodiversity and approval of a safeguard plan. The latter supports research and monitoring of agrobiodiversity; restitution of local seeds; training for seed producers and seed exchange fairs; marketing of agrobiodiversity products, valorization of traditional cuisine and gastronomic fairs; value addition to native crops; as well as awareness building and educational activities. Lessons learned include that actions taken should be led by participating peasant organizations; there should be a clear priority on farmers’ needs, especially needs of women farmers; furthermore, cooperation with research organizations is essential; research should have a direct and immediate relationship with farmers' needs.

    Category: 1.Recognition of local and indigenous communities’, farmers’ contributions to conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA, such as awards and recognition of custodian/guardian farmers

    Type of measure/practice: Technical; Administrative

    140) General regime on Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS)

    In order to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol, the French law on Biodiversity (n°2016-1087) has modified of the Environmental Code – Article L. 412-3 and establish¬es rules on access to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge and sharing of benefits arising from their use. In addition, the EU Regulation No 511/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 establishes compliance measures under the Nagoya Protocol. The Ministry of Ecology is the competent authority receiving any application for accession to traditional knowl¬edge associated with genetic resources. French law also applies directly to the five ‘overseas’ departments (Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guyana, Mayotte, La Reunion) and to Saint-Martin and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon; and partially to some other territories, including New Caledonia and French Polynesia. Currently, processes are underway to establish procedures for consultation with ‘communities of inhabitants’ or ‘resident communities’, which can be any community of inhabitants who traditionally derive their livelihood from the natural environment and whose way of life is of interest for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Benefit-sharing can include measures for the preservation of traditional knowledge related to PGRFA of the communities concerned, with their prior informed consent.

    Category: 10.Legal measures for the implementation of Farmers’ Rights, such as legislative measures related to PGRFA.

    Type of measure/practice: Administrative; Legal