ABSTRACT
European positions in the negotiations on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) (hereafter the Treaty) were strongly influenced by developments in European agriculture during the last century. In particular since the 1960s, as a result of the creation of the European Community and its Common Agricultural Policy, the face of agriculture in Europe changed profoundly, characterized by major-scale increases in production, a strong increase in the use of external inputs at the farm and the development of a strong breeding industry making use of the latest technologies (see Chapter 12 for more detail on the seed industry). Product demands were increasingly driven by the food industry and the retail sector, resulting in a high level of product uniformity. A large proportion of European farmers would increasingly buy their seeds on the market rather than save these on the farm.
