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by Ronnie Vernooy

Upstream and downstream, the operations of CGIAR centers face a range of policy challenges related to genetic resources. Upstream, a new research focus on developing technologies that can be taken forward by private companies requires striking a balance between providing incentives for private-sector engagement and maintaining maximum public availability for the goods that the centers develop. Downstream, greater involvement with formal and informal seed systems at the national level, to produce and distribute quality seed, depends on national level policies (and their absence) that can determine the success of these activities.

In our survey for the report Flows under stress: Availability of plant genetic resources in times of climate and policy change, we found that centers generally did not face significant challenges in getting access to proprietary technology from companies and research institutions. Instead, most difficulties arose where the centers provide technologies to private sector companies.

CGIAR breeding programmes have traditionally made their improved germplasm available to anyone who asks for it. Since 2007, they have done so with a Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA), which was adopted for the exchange of germplasm included in the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). Recently, some CGIAR centers have started to distribute their improved materials, most often to private-sector recipients, with terms and conditions additional to those of the SMTA. These conditions include prohibitions on recipients passing material on to third parties, which is explicitly permitted when transferring “PGRFA under development”. Some companies and US universities have indicated their discomfort receiving materials from centers under the SMTA, but, in general, there appears to be a fairly widespread acceptance.

Where centers have been working locally to bulk and distribute improved varieties, the challenges concern variety registration, seed production, quality control and marketing and subsidies. There is particular concern about the limited research on and dissemination of a wider portfolio of crop species, especially those that are hardier and more resilient to climate extremes. Centers working with these crops are developing closer interactions with farmer groups and NGOs, for example in participatory plant breeding and variety selection initiatives. In some cases, downstream work has led to alternative schemes for variety release, dissemination and quality assurance, which involve small-scale seed-producer groups and use informal channels of multiplication and exchange.

A lingering and overarching policy challenge is the difficulty that many breeders face in accessing the plant genetic resources they need from public research organizations and private companies alike. Some survey respondents said that they had been sent materials subject to legal conditions that were so restrictive (for example, excluding further distribution) that the centers could not accept them. This lack of access to new genetic resources has gone so far that breeders in some centers complain that the movement of germplasm is now one way only – going out with very little coming in.

Bioversity International recently undertook an in-depth study of Availability of plant genetic resources in times of climate and policy change for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. This blog post was written by Roonie Vernooy, one of the study’s authors. Vernooy has summarized parts of the report here on our blog. Comments to the author are welcomed. Read the other related blog posts to the above mentioned report.