- ICRAF helps us understand little-understood African fruit trees.
- The apple is pretty well understood, but this one important, 200-year-old tree is dying. Tissue culture to the rescue.
- I see your 200-year-old-tree and I raise you 6000-year-old barley.
- GRAIN takes aim at FTAs.
- Desertification may not be a thing.
- Biodiversity loss is, though, right?
GRAIN on FTAs: If FTAs require countries to- “adopt the rules of
the International Union for the Protection of New Plant
Varieties (UPOV) which provide patent-like rights for plant breeders” why doesn’t the Secretariat of the ITPGRFA trigger the Treaty requirement for plant patents [or `patent-like’ rights] for mandatory payments to the Treaty under Treaty article 13. d. ii. UPOV 1991 is certainly `patent-like’ and this should have been accepted and acted on 12 years ago. It would not, of course, trigger payments from pre-UPOV 1991 countries – Canada, Ireland, Norway, New Zealand and the like, but would hit the USA, UK, Germany, Sweden and Australia. Perhaps FAO got cold feet.