New Delhi: A meeting of the Ninth Session of the Governing Body (GB9) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA or Plant Treaty) will be held in New Delhi from September 19-24, 2022.
The Treaty is a legally binding comprehensive agreement adopted in November 2001 in Rome during the 31st session of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which entered into force on June 29, 2004, and currently has 149 Contracting Parties, including India.
Agriculture Secretary Manoj Ahuja said PGRFA aims to provide scale-independent solutions to achieve food and nutritional security as well as climate-resilient agriculture. Countries are interdependent on PGRFA and consequently, a global order is essential to facilitate access and benefit sharing.
“The current theme aims to acknowledge the contribution of the world's small-holder farmers to the effective management of PGRFA while providing an opportunity to consider how the Treaty and its community will contribute to the new global biodiversity framework” added Manoj Ahuja. He further said that GB9 will consider the options for encouraging, guiding and promoting the realization of Farmers' Rights as set out in Article 9 of the Treaty, developed by an Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Farmers' Rights.
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Dialogues would also be held to further strengthen clauses under the treaty in the context of the CBD and its Nagoya Protocol, Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Global Crop Diversity Trust, and new Global Biodiversity Framework to pursue a more robust Treaty implementation. India's National local Point for the Treaty is the Joint Secretary (Seeds), Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare.
“On one hand, India is endowed with rich crop genetic resources and on the other, the nation has successfully established legal, institutional and scholastic infrastructure to utilize the genetic diversity for breeding new varieties. With this unique status and as GB9 host, India is expected to
play a crucial role in minimizing the dissonance between technology-rich developed and gene-rich developing countries to achieve functional resolutions on critical agenda items,” concluded Manoj Ahuja.
