Plant Genetic Resources Under The Management And Control Of The Contracting Parties And In The Public Domain

Following seven years of negotiations, the text of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) was finally adopted in November 2001 at the thirty-first session of the conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). ¹ As articulated in Article 1, the main objectives of the Treaty are the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from their use. Although the Treaty is concerned with the access to, and conservation and use (for plant breeding, research and teaching) of all plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, it has established a special regime of ‘facilitated access’ for a group of crops that are important for food security, which are enumerated in Annex I of the Treaty. This regime, known as the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing (multilateral system), considers the materials in Annex I to be part of a common pool from which the contracting parties, and the organizations located within them, may benefit without payment or any other condition for access, ² except the signature of a Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA). ³