9:30 PM Apr 24, 1996

THE PLANT GENETIC MATERIAL

Speaking for the Latin American and the Caribbean group at a major meeting of plant resources here, Colombia stressed the need for developing countries to have an equitable share in the benefits resulting from the industrialised countries' use of the poor nations' biological diversity.

Industrialised countries have claimed intellectual property rights to biological resources that once originated from developing countries and made huge benefits, said the Colombian delegation to the Second Extraordinary Session of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Commission on Plant Genetic Resources, held all this week in Rome.

"Part of those benefits should go to the communities and developing countries," he added, "because the original material came from them."

Delegations from over 100 countries have begun this week in Rome a review of two draft documents that describe the state of the world's plant diversity and recommend actions that governments, international organisations and non-governmental organisations would need to take to conserve and better use the earth's diminishing biological wealth.

Plant genetic resources, said FAO Deputy Director General Howard Hjort during opening statements, are a key element to the global food security.

In a recent address, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf pointed out that while there is enough food to feed everyone in the world, its distribution remains terribly skewed both within and between countries, and from one region to another.

In the developing countries, nearly 800 million people suffer from chronic under-nutrition and nearly 200 million children under the age of five are affected by severe or chronic protein-calorie deficiency.

"More than 20 years after the 1974 World Food Conference, the goal of `eradicating hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition within a decade' remains stubbornly beyond our grasp," said Diouf.

The two draft documents -- Report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources and the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilisation of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture -- will be submitted for adoption by governments at the Fourth International Technical Conference in Leipzig in Germany in June.

Developing countries and non-governmental organisations alike are hoping that the Global Plan of Action in particular, which is a non-binding instrument at present, would eventually become a protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The review of the Global Plan of Action comes also at a time when the same FAO Commission is going through revisions of a related non-binding instrument, or the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources.

Revisions of the International Undertaking are expected to follow later this week after the review of the Global Plan of Action.

In the eyes of developing countries and NGOs, the International Undertaking, which was adopted by the FAO Conference in 1983, is an important document as it recognises "Farmers' Rights" and the "sovereign rights of nations over their genetic resources".

Observers pointed out that both the Global Plan of Action as well as the International Undertaking were gains made by developing countries as they recognised a number of issues dear to developing countries.

The Global Plan of Action is expected to be contested by the rich nations. A number of countries have already expressed reservations about "new and additional" funding needed to implement the Plan and being demanded by developing countries.

For one, the Global Plan of Action recognised the traditional conservation methods being practised by the world's farmers and recommended supporting "on-farm" or "in-situ" development of plant genetic resources, thus sharing some of the benefits of genetic resources directly with the farming communities that have produced them historically.

Modern plant breeding has been remarkably successful in helping raise crop yields, especially in favourable environments. Still, the Global Plan of Action stressed, the overwhelming majority of the world's farmers, by choice or necessity, engage in de-facto conservation and development of plant genetic resources as they select and save seed for the next planting season.

These farmers typically live in "marginal" agricultural environments and practice low-input farming, but often lack access to new and diverse genetic materials which could be integrated into existing crops to improve production.

"Genetic resources do not always come from developing countries," said Bernard Le Buanec, secretary general of the International Association of Plant Breeders for the Protection of Plant Varieties based in Switzerland. "Some have come from developed countries."

"If it were possible to define the benefits and the share of germplasms that come from developing countries, why not (share the benefits equitably)? But it is impossible, where food and agriculture is concerned. It is easier when it concerns pharmaceuticals," said Le Buanec.

"The problem with developing countries is that some think they are sitting on gold mines. It may be true for some, but not when it concerns food and agriculture. Brazil, which has been strict in the discussions on this subject, has 95 percent of its genetic resources originating from other countries. It may be more of a South-South problem, than a North-South problem," he added.

Despite what they have recognised as "promising" points and principles contained in the Global Plan of Action, most non-governmental organisations fear it will nevertheless maintain a Northward flow of the South's plant diversity.

They fear that the access rights raised in the Action Plan have been interpreted only in terms of Northern needs. "NGOs attending the Rome meeting must warn governments that the present access proposals are little more than an exit door for peasants' seeds," said Rene Salazar of the Philippines' NGO Searice.