Category: Genebanks

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Genebanks and farmers

As they cooperate with seed companies, the gene banks do not feel responsible for distribution of seeds to their prime users, the peasants. Thus, the peasant is not taken as a stakeholder of the plant breeding and the seed conservation and production. But, as the choice of seeds influences the type of agriculture, of landscape, of environment and of food, it is hypocritical not letting this choice, this right to the peasants. It is essential to put the peasants in the heart of seed conservation and to esteem the social role of seeds: they allow people to produce food, to share knowledge and traditions, and to be independent from any corporate dependence.

That’s according to Lena Haun, Agrobiodiversity Campaigner Intern at Eco Ruralis, after talking to genebanks in France and Romania. But with all due respect, I find it very hard to believe the premise that “gene banks do not feel responsible for distribution of seeds to their prime users, the peasants.” Want an example? Here’s Dave Ellis from the genebank of the International Potato Center:

For example, we found in our collection potato cultivars that were collected in the last 30 to 40 years in Peru’s Sacred Valley, and gave those varieties back to the communities that live in the Parque de la Papa, close to Cusco. Now they are growing and testing them again. This is really important, as the Sacred Valley is one place in the world where we have documented evidence of the need for flexibility in potato cultivation due to a rapidly changing climate.

I think Dave feels responsible for distribution of potato diversity from the CIP genebank to its prime users, the peasants. Don’t you? So do the partners involved in Bioversity’s Seeds for Needs initiative, ((Being showcased these days in Paris at #CFCC15.)) for example. And every national genebank manager I’ve ever spoken to, for that matter.

Sure, genebanks collaborate with seed companies. And what’s wrong with that, if farmers end up with more, better choices? Anyway, they also collaborate with public sector plant breeders. And work directly with farmers in many, many cases. They could probably do it more. But to say that genebanks don’t feel a responsibility for making the diversity they maintain available to farming communities is just plain wrong.

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Seed libraries take a stand

Seed-sharing initiatives — which allow participants to “borrow” seeds from a library at the beginning of the gardening season and “donate” seeds back to the library after harvest — are cropping up all across the country. They have become a proven way to help build community, support local agriculture, and kickstart the sharing movement.

What’s not to like, right? Well, USDA had some objections, for one, leading to a bit of a crackdown last year.

…library officials received a letter from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture notifying them that their seed library was in violation of the Seed Act of 2004. The Department of Agriculture sent a top official and attorneys to meet with library representatives. They explained that, while the Seed Act’s main focus is the selling of seeds, the department is also tasked with keeping mislabeled seeds, invasive plant species, cross-pollinated varietals, and poisonous plants out of the state. As part of their discussions, the department further informed the library that all seeds had to be tested for purity and germination rates.

Well, it’s a year on now, and things are looking up.

In both Minnesota and Nebraska, bills that specifically exempt non-commercial seed sharing from commercial seed laws were recently signed into law.

And the Feds are on board, so there won’t be midnight knocks on the door from the Seed Police.

…“the Department of Agriculture itself worked with us to create the language that they were happy with. To that extent, it feels that there’s a really positive message that can be brought from Minnesota, that the leader of this organization, that his state supported it.”

But if you think that’s all very well, but not much comfort to seed enthusiasts in the other 48 States, there’s a petition you can sign. I wonder if this will make it to the Supreme Court, and if so how Scalia will vote.

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Genebanks misunderstood again

“Seed banks were set up primarily to preserve the seeds of economically important crops, to keep a living bank of tissue with which we can grow these plants again in the future. The genome project is to preserve the genomic history and content of these plants so we can understand how life works.”

Oh yeah, because places like the Millennium Seed Bank don’t help at all in preserving the genomic content of plants and “understanding how life works.” And of course this has never been thought of before.

Comprehensive repositories of this kind would be “cool to have”, says Henrique Miguel Pereira, head of biodiversity conservation at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig. “But is it really the most important thing?” he asks.

Good question.

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Nagoya marches on in the EU

It seems that an attempt by Dutch and German plant breeders to get the EU to reconsider its ratification of the Nagoya Protocol has been unsuccessful. The breeders had said that the regulation…

…was insufficiently clear and created disproportionate red tape and additional expenses for their businesses.

Ouch. But what of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture? Wouldn’t the quite different access and benefit sharing system it established alleviate at least some of the breeders’ concerns? Well, maybe.

Regarding other avenues for plant breeders specifically, Article 2(2) of the Regulation in principle allows an exemption for genetic resources for which alternative “access and benefit-sharing” mechanisms are governed by “specialised international instruments”. Some commentators have argued that this could in theory allow at least some plant breeders to evade ((Probably not the most appropriate word to use here, I suspect. Ed.)) the Nagoya Protocol using the benefit-sharing procedures of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, as some industry leaders have also suggested. However, it remains untested, whether such an exemption would be upheld in practice.

To which I would say: why don’t the breeders in question do that testing? I’m not sure whether any of the ones involved in querying Nagoya specialize in breeding for organic agriculture, ((Coincidentally, this all to unusual approach to the deployment of wheat diversity for organic conditions popped up as I was writing this post.)) but if it’s true what they’re saying about “additional expenses,” the new regulations would hit that segment particularly hard. A recent report points out that:

Organic plant breeding is of common interest and requires long-term funding. It is a common good with socio-environmental benefits greater than are mirrored by the modest royalties of its market value.

All the more reasons to test the International Treaty, and indeed make sure it works. Incidentally, recommendation 6 of the report (p. 19) will resonate with breeders — organic, and not so much — everywhere. And it might also be extended to genebanks (which unfortunately the report doesn’t mention):

Public awareness about the importance of plant breeding should be dramatically enhanced. It is literally in everybody’s best interest to develop an awareness of the foundational role that seeds play in health and nutrition. Since this topic is not always easy to communicate, new forms of communication should be sought. Hitherto, only breeders have been pushing for organically bred plant varieties, now consumers should start pulling retailers to further develop the market.

Meanwhile, various stakeholderts are gearing up to enforce the new rules, and monitor compliance, for example in the UK. The International Treaty came into force years ago in the EU, but I don’t recall frantic meetings being organized at the time to cope with it.