Category: Policy

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On being ambitious for agrobiodiversity

The authors of “Set ambitious goals for biodiversity and sustainability” are not kidding around:

In response to the goals proposed in the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) made public by the CBD, we urge negotiators to consider three points that are critical if the agreed goals are to stabilize or reverse nature’s decline. First, multiple goals are required because of nature’s complexity, with different facets—genes, populations, species, deep evolutionary history, ecosystems, and their contributions to people—having markedly different geographic distributions and responses to human drivers. Second, interlinkages among these facets mean that goals must be defined and developed holistically rather than in isolation, with potential to advance multiple goals simultaneously and minimize trade-offs between them. Third, only the highest level of ambition in setting each goal, and implementing all goals in an integrated manner, will give a realistic chance of stopping—and beginning to reverse—biodiversity loss by 2050.

What does “the highest level of ambition” mean for genetic diversity? Check out the handy table provided.

And there’s also a box listing the red lines for the ecosystem, species and genetic diversity goals. This last should:

  • Include maintenance of genetic diversity—the raw material for evolutionary processes that support survival and adaptation; population size is not an adequate proxy for this.
  • Be set at the highest ambition level (e.g., above 90% of genetic diversity maintained).
  • Focus on populations and their adaptive capacity and include wild species and domesticated species and their wild relatives.

No word in this paper on how to measure whether that 90% figure is being met and maintained, for all species. That’s a whole other story, that some of the authors are actively working on. Fingers crossed.

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Brainfood: Now what edition

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Genebanks and “no regrets” options

One of the reasons I haven’t been very active on here for the past couple of weeks is that I’ve been busy at work with a little thing called the Chatham House Dialogue on “Crop Diversity for Challenging Times: the Role of Genebanks in Sustainable Development.”

The Chatham House Dialogue comprised three separate sessions that aimed to build a vision of how genebanks can play a fuller and more effective role in helping agriculture meet future challenges. Special attention was paid to the evolving role of the international genebanks managed by the CGIAR. The key findings and recommendations of the dialogue were written up as a brief statement and, together with background documents prepared for the Dialogue, were used as the basis for a System level review of CGIAR genebank costs and operations (GCO review).

It’s all described on the website of the CGIAR Genebank Platform. There you’ll find the background papers, presentations, a brief personal summary by your truly, and videos of some of the participants.

The bottom line?

In these circumstances, indeed, conserving crop diversity is the ultimate option to ensure “no regrets.” If it is useful in good times, it is absolutely essential under TUNA ((That is, characterized by turbulence, uncertainty, novelty and ambiguity.)) conditions. The participants could not envisage any future scenario, at whatever scale, in whatever part of the world, in which agriculture’s need for crop diversity—whether intra- or inter-specific—was likely to decrease. There will be changes in the nature of the demand, for sure, but not an absolute decrease. Countries, institutes and people are in fact likely to become ever more interdependent for crop diversity, and not only because of climate change, but also because of changes in pests and diseases, in consumer demand, and in trade, to name just a few major drivers. Interdependence requires shared governance and trust, which led to a plea from one participant that researchers become more politically active.

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A way forward on DSI?

You may remember an old blog post of mine over on the work website describing how an impasse over access and benefit sharing arrangements relating to “digital sequence information” (DSI) on plant genetic resources scuppered the most recent round of Plant Treaty negotiations. ((A recent paper discusses the parallel negotiations in the CBD.)) No? Well, this is how I put it at the time:

Some countries, and many civil society organizations, contended … that seed companies would soon be able to produce and market new varieties simply by manipulating genomic data in open-access repositories. That is, without needing to access actual seeds, and thus triggering the ABS provisions of the Treaty. In their view, this is a loophole that should be closed.

Others said that this is far-fetched, and that DNA sequence data needs to be freely available for researchers and breeders to do their work properly, and deliver new, better varieties, faster. Charging scientists for using genomic data, even if a way could be found of doing it, would impede vital research.

I was a bit worried about the binary at the time. It was an easy — though maybe a bit lazy — way to summarize the situation, but surely there was room for nuance? That was brought home to me by a recent paper from the project Wissenschaftliche Lösungsansätze für Digitale Sequenzinformation (Scientific approaches for digital sequence information) from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

In past DSI discussions, a stark contrast has often been presented: either the status quo with an open-access model and extensive non-monetary benefit-sharing but zero monetary benefit-sharing OR a closed-access system with monetary benefit-sharing but dramatically reduced or zero non-monetary benefit-sharing and a loss of open-access. We are convinced that the debate between open access and monetary benefit-sharing is a false choice and that both principles can thrive if innovative ideas and open-mindedness are brought to the table.

And the paper is actually a great contribution to the cause of finding a workable middle way. It’s worth reading the whole thing, or at least the executive summary, but basically, it suggests 5 options:

  • micro-levy
  • membership fees
  • cloud-based fees
  • commons licences
  • metadata & blockchain

I particularly like the micro-levy idea.

Do any data jockeys on here care to share their thoughts?