Vandana Tyagi

Indian Plant Germplasm on the Global Platter: An Analysis

Food security is a global concern amongst scientists, researchers and policy makers. No country is self-sufficient to address food security issues independently as almost all countries are inter-dependent for availability of plant genetic resources (PGR) in their national crop improvement programmes. Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR; in short CG) centres play an important role in conserving and distributing PGR through their genebanks. CG genebanks assembled the germplasm through collecting missions and acquisition the same from national genebanks of other countries. Using the Genesys Global Portal on Plant Genetic Resources, the World Information and Early Warning System (WIEWS) on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and other relevant databases, we analysed the conservation status of Indian-origin PGR accessions (both cultivated and wild forms possessed by India) in CG genebanks and other national genebanks, including the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) genebanks, which can be considered as an indicator of Indian contribution to the global germplasm collection. A total of 28,027,770 accessions are being conserved world-wide by 446 organizations represented in Genesys; of these, 3.78% (100,607) are Indian-origin accessions. Similarly, 62,920 Indian-origin accessions (8.73%) have been conserved in CG genebanks which are accessible to the global research community for utilization in their respective crop improvement programmes. A total of 60 genebanks including 11 CG genebanks have deposited 824,625 accessions of PGR in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) as safety duplicates; the average number of accessions deposited by each genebank is 13,744, and amongst them there are 66,339 Indian-origin accessions. In principle, India has contributed 4.85 times the number of germplasm accessions to SGSV, in comparison to the mean value (13,744) of any individual genebank including CG genebanks. More importantly, about 50% of the Indian-origin accessions deposited in SGSV are traditional varieties or landraces with defined traits which form the backbone of any crop gene pool. This paper is also attempting to correlate the global data on Indian-origin germplasm with the national germplasm export profile. The analysis from this paper is discussed with the perspective of possible implications in the access and benefit sharing regime of both the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the newly enforced Nagoya Protocol under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Access and Benefit Sharing Mechanism under the Multilateral System of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

Sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) is of critical importance for food and nutritional security. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture recognizes the efforts of farmers and local communities involved in on-farm conservation and management of PGRFA. The international exchange of PGRFA for research, breeding and conservation is the key requirement for food security and sustainable agriculture. Access to global gene pool which is a network of international and national gene banks and other institutions is a major benefit under the Treaty. Facilitated access to this vast gene pool under the Treaty is provided under the terms and conditions of the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA). India has already notified the guidelines for the implementation of the Treaty and is already using SMTA for exchange of PGRFA with Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The guidelines are notified under the provisions of national legislation that is Biodiversity Act, 2002. The chapter details the multilateral system (MLS) of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) under the Treaty, option for benefit sharing under SMTA, and provisions of providing facilitated access under the Treaty and access to PGRFA as per the provisions of the treaty in India.