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International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

International Seed Treaty
Signed 2001
Location Madrid
Effective 2004
Depositary Secretary-General of the United Nations
Languages Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (IT PGRFA), popularly known as the International Seed Treaty, is a comprehensive international agreement in harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity, which aims at guaranteeing food security through the conservation, exchange and sustainable use of the world's plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), as well as the fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from its use. It also recognises Farmers' Rights, subject to national laws to: a) the protection of traditional knowledge relevant to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture; b) the right to equitably participate in sharing benefits arising from the utilisation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture; and c) the right to participate in making decisions, at the national level, on matters related to the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. The Treaty establishes the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing to facilitate plant germplasm exchanges and benefit sharing through Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA).

However, as Regine Andersen of the farmers' rights project, among others, including Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, argue, the interpretation and realisation of farmers' rights is weak and is not the same across all countries. Without a consistent, strong international focus on the realising the rights of farmers who conserve and sustainably use PGRFA to save, use, exchange and sell seeds saved on-farm, genetic variety of crops and related agricultural biodiversity will suffer. India, for example, includes an interpretation of farmers' rights in its Plant Variety Protection and Farmers' Rights Act, allowing farmers a restricted right to save and sell seed they have produced on-farm as they always have, even if it contains genes from a protected variety.,


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