White Paper gives research the green light
"If we want a world that shares its knowledge, then we need international institutions like the CGIAR", says Clare Short, Secretary of State for the British Government's Department for International Development. This was her response to New Agriculturist during a recent interview when she was asked to justify her Department's endorsement of the CGIAR in the recently published White Paper.
| Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor |
|---|
DFID White Paper
paragraph 137 |
| Note: The White Paper is available on line www.globalisation.gov.uk |
The endorsement comes with qualifications that will be of interest to those working within the CG system as well as all those involved in agricultural research. (see box)
The CG Centres have been having a difficult time in recent years, with funding cut as the donor community finds other, more attractive causes to support. But Clare Short's Department believes that although commercial interests will take care of agricultural research where there is likely to be a return, the public sector must undertake research of benefit to the poor.
Beyond dispute is the fact that the CGIAR Centres hold the world's largest
collections of plant genetic resources of importance to poor people. These
collections comprise more than 500,000 varieties and are a public good,
held in trust for the benefit of mankind and freely available to all.
More than 100,000 samples are distributed directly from these collections
each year and five to ten times this amount of improved materials are
distributed. But the cost of maintaining these collections is huge so
the Centres are currently exploring alternative ways of securing long
term funding. There is also uncertainty over the legal status of the collections.
Resolving this will depend on a successful outcome in the negotiations
of the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and
Agriculture (IU). 
The IU is intended
to provide a multilateral system of rules for access to agricultural genetic
resources and the sharing of benefits from their use. This would ensure
continuing free exchange of seeds and other genetic material while giving
developing countries benefits from their own agricultural biodiversity.
Talks last November foundered because the United States, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand argued that the proposal for commercial benefit sharing
was incompatible with the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
Agreement. The only way of definitely resolving the issue would be through
the WTO's dispute settlement procedure, an event which could not come
about until the IU had entered into force and a real challenge raised.
Talks are due to resume in April and the outcome will have significant
implications for the health of the CG Centres, to say nothing of the wellbeing
of the world's poorer farmers.
As Clare Short points out, "We'll always need agriculture. People have got to be fed. If we work together and say we are not going to live in the face of the abundance humanity now has - of capital and knowledge - with nearly a quarter of humanity living in extreme poverty, then we can really set about, by 2015, major progress in lifting up the life opportunities for the poorest."
- Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research - increasingly referred to as 'Future Harvest' Centres. DFID currently provides direct support to the Centres amounting to about £9 million annually. (www.cgiar.org)
- This is the second White Paper (a document which sets out Government policy) published by DFID during the current Parliament.
