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

Please fix the following errors:

    Help on this page

    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.
     
     
     
     
     
    Clear search form
    Number of records: 233

    176) Distribution of plant genetic resources conserved in the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources of the National Institute of Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (CRF-INIA) to farmers for direct use

    Since its creation in 1981, the National Centre for Plant Genetic Resources (CRF), part of the National Institute of Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), conserves ex situ, in addition to the basic collection, active collections of cereals, legumes and industrial crops, and makes them available to users, e.g. for use in research or breeding programmes, and also to farmers for direct use. The objective is to promote the direct use of PGRFA in the form in which they are conserved, thereby enabling their dynamic conservation. The CRF, in response to requests from users, distributes seeds provided there is enough quantity. It further considers the legal status of the requested material, in accordance with the ITPGRFA, Nagoya Protocol and international conventions on the protection of intellectual property. To fulfil requests from farmers, a simplified Material Transfer Agreement is signed, in which the conditions for use are clearly stated: the seed or planting material obtained under this agreement is to be used only for its cultivation and can only be transferred for this same purpose. The maintenance of biodiversity in the genebanks, especially as far as local varieties are concerned, is of great interest for some groups of farmers.

    Category: 6.Facilitation of farmers’ access to a diversity of PGRFA through community seed banks, seed networks and other measures improving farmers’ choices of a wider diversity of PGRFA.

    Type of measure/practice: Technical

    177) Presentation of Farmers' Rights to representatives of organizations, producers, and citizens in general in Nicaragua

    The Federation of Development Co-operatives (FECODESA), founded in 2007, is a third-degree co-operative organization, made up of 15 unions and central co-operatives and a specialised development organization known as Centro Para la Promoción, la Investigación y Desarrollo Rural Social (CIPRES). FECODESA represents 144 grassroots cooperatives and 5,802 members (2,911 women and 2,891 men). The objectives of the federation are to strengthen organizational capacities and entrepreneurship; to provide training and technical assistance for the production, marketing to its members; and to engage in political advocacy work. In this process, FECODESA has implemented different actions and strategies, such as the ‘Collaborative Participatory Plant Breeding Program’, which was initiated by CIPRES in 2000 and continued by the federation from 2014 onwards; this program has allowed, inter alia, to strengthen capacities and build alliances for the implementation of a strategy for conservation, development and use of local agrobiodiversity. Activities included participatory collection and conservation of local varieties; the development of new varieties of crops using participatory methods; local seed production; as well as local and national advocacy work to promote strategies and policies that are favourable to small and medium farmers in the country.

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

    Type of measure/practice: Technical

    178) Policy dialogue to facilitate farmers’ participation in decision-making

    The Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy (CEPA) has been conducting policy advocacy on seed related policy and legal frameworks with a focus on frameworks recognizing and promoting Farmers’ Rights. In 2018, the Department of Agriculture Research Services (DARS) reviewed the Seed Bill; CEPA conducted an analysis of the draft Seed Bill and mobilized stakeholders, including farmers, to engage in a dialogue meeting with the Seed Bill drafting team. During dialogue sessions, CEPA played a facilitating role by conducting sessions in a local language to ensure that farmers could effectively participate. Major outcomes of the process were the observation that most of the concerns/issues raised by the farmers during the dialogue session were addressed in the revised Seed Bill document. A key lesson learned was that involving farmers to actively participate in policy dialogue increased the chances of influencing decision-making.

    Category: 8.Farmers’ participation in decision-making at local, national and sub-regional, regional and international levels

    Type of measure/practice: Others

    179) Participatory Plant Breeding in Lao PDR

    In 2000, the Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE), an NGO operating at regional level, and the Agricultural Research Center (ARC) of the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) together with the Department of Agriculture in Lao PDR launched a program called Biodiversity Use and Conservation in Asia Program (BUCAP), which later merged with another program called Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation (CBDC), and implemented from 2006-2010. Activities centred around Farmer Field Schools (FFS) on rice breeding, through which farmers co-defined breeding objectives, and together with scientists of the ARC, identified suitable parent materials. Researchers and extension agents were trained as FFS facilitators, while policy makers from local and national levels were consciously involved in all key activities to raise awareness and generate support for the work of farmers on the ground. As a result of the initiative, 55 high performing rice varieties were developed, of which some exhibit adaptation to specific conditions, including tolerance to drought or acid soils; one variety was granted official release in 2018, while others are still going through the same process.

    Category: 7.Participatory approaches to research on PGRFA, including characterization and evaluation, participatory plant breeding and variety selection

    Type of measure/practice: Technical; Administrative

    180) Developing Community Biodiversity Registries and Biocultural Community Protocols (BCP): tools for implementing Farmers' Rights as set out in Article 9 of the ITPGRFA and strengthening community capacity to manage crop genetic diversity

    Starting in 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries (MAEP) and Service d’Appui à la Gestion de l’Environnement (SAGE) in Madagascar and the Institut National des Recherches Agricoles du Benin (INRAB) together with the NGO Cercle de Sauvegarde des Ressources Naturelles (CeSaReN) for Benin, with support of Bioversity International and the Darwin Initiative, implemented a project to facilitate the mutually supportive implementation of the ITPGRFA and Nagoya Protocol. The ABS Capacity Development Initiative, the Secretariats of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the ITPGRFA; the African Union Commission and the regional NGO Natural Justice were also involved as partners. At the national level, the focus was on creating and adopting legal instruments. At the local level, communities were supported to create Community Biodiversity Registries as a useful tool to identify, document and monitor the existing biodiversity in their surroundings, along with associated traditional knowledge; Biocultural Community Protocols were then developed to enable local communities to take advantage of their countries’ commitments under both the ITPGRFA and the Nagoya Protocol by establishing mechanisms to regulate access to genetic resources in their territories and to establish the terms and conditions for access to and use of their traditional knowledge and resources.

    Category: 4.Catalogues, registries and other forms of documentation of PGRFA and protection of traditional knowledge

    Type of measure/practice: Technical; Administrative