South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics & Environment (SAWTEE) and Fridtjof
Nansen Institute (FNI), Norway organized a two-day regional meeting on
“Conservation, Use and Exchange of Crop Genetic Resources: Promoting Regional
Cooperation for a Food-Secure, Climate- Resilient South Asia”. The objective of
the meeting was to bring together
experts, policy makers, private sector representatives, academic researchers
and relevant stakeholders to discuss issues related to governance of crop
genetic resources in South Asia.
H.E. Arjun Bahadur Thapa,
Secretary General of SAARC, Chief Guest of the programme stressed that South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has given utmost importance
to the conservation, use and exchange of crop genetic resources. He argued that
due to the vulnerability of South Asian countries to natural disasters and
climate change, advances in regional cooperation is necessary to generate
policy responses to address food insecurity in the region. He opined that the
SAARC Seed Bank could be a means to promote regional exchange of seeds
important for food security and climate change adaptation.
Dr. Kristen Rosendal, Research
Director and Mr Steinar Andresen, Research Professor at FNI, focused on how
international agreements governing genetic resources have failed to resolve
North-South conflicts on access to and commercial use of seeds. She called for
future actions so to promote mutual supportiveness, and secure effective and
legitimate division of labour between global regimes governing genetic
resources.
Discussing the South Asian
contexts and complexities in relation to the governance of crop genetic
resources, Mr. Kamalesh Adhikari of the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet)
of the Australian National University called for meaningful regional
cooperation on climate change, agriculture and food security. He said, “SAARC
countries will benefit by developing regional guidelines and models on how to
regulate genetically modified seeds; promote access to and benefit sharing from
the use of regional crop genetic resources; and protect farmers’ rights to
seeds and traditional knowledge”.
Talking about the case of India, Dr.
Anitha Ramannna-Pathak, Assistant Professor, SP Jain School of Global Management
argued that though India is considered a global leader in the design of laws on
intellectual property, access to genetic resources and benefit sharing,
empirical evidence suggests that expected results have not been achieved. She added that the distribution of monetary benefits accrued
from access to genetic resources had not been shared equitably with local
communities.
Dr. Posh Raj Pandey, Chairman,
SAWTEE emphasized on the need to consider different paths to enhance regional
cooperation on issues related to the conservation, use and exchange of crop
genetic resources for a food secure and climate resilient region. He suggested
four pathways for the countries to move forward: (i) political consensus
between regional countries; (ii) formation of new organizations and instruments
based on past experiences; (iii) implementation of regional projects; and (iv) an
ancillary path to capture the practical and technical aspects like information
sharing. Talking about the High-level Committee on Technology Bank formed by
the Secretary General of the United Nations, Dr. Pandey suggested that there
was a need to explore whether such a bank could be used to promote the
management and sustainable use of South Asia’s plant genetic resources and
traditional knowledge.
During the two-day meeting, the
experts discussed various issues of regional cooperation in relation to the conservation,
use and exchange of crop genetic resources. Issues such as the impact of
climate and natural disaster; the role of national, regional and global gene
banks, and national and international research centres; and challenges and
opportunities in implementing various international agreements such as
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), International Treaty on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), and Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) were thoroughly discussed. Altogether, 50
experts from South Asia working on plant genetic resource-related issues, along
with government officials, journalists and academicians participated in the
meeting.
Presentations:
