www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

An agreement to bring the genebank collections of international agricultural
research centres into the framework of the International Treaty on Plant
Genetic Resources will help ensure that the world?s farmers have the
resources to improve the sustainability of agricultural production even as
they adapt to climate change and other challenges, says the Executive
Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, as he welcomed the
agreements signed on World Food Day, October 2006.

?The seeds and planting material held in these collections is a vital
resource for improving agricultural production, making it is sustainable,
and helping us adapt to climate change and other new challenges? said Ahmed
Djoghlaf.

Collectively, the international agricultural research centres hold the world
?s most comprehensive and representative collections of plant genetic
resources of the food and agricultural species.

?Farmers of the world and their communities will now also be able to profit
from the commercialization of seeds and plant varieties that they nurture,?
said Mr. Djoghlaf. ?This will conserve biodiversity, help to support rural
livelihoods and therefore combat poverty.?

The International Treaty guarantees that farmers and plant breeders
worldwide will have access to the plant genetic resources of the world?s
major food crops, such as rice, wheat, maize, sorghum and millets. It also
includes an innovative multilateral system to share benefits that arise from
the commercialization of new varieties among the farmers and communities
that maintain and develop the genetic resources.

The Treaty entered into force in 2004 and has been welcomed by Parties to
the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The Convention on Biological Diversity is one of the most broadly subscribed
international environmental treaties in the world. Opened for signature at
the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro Brazil in 1992, it currently has 188
Parties?187 States and the European Community? who have committed themselves
to its three main goals: the conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use
of its components and the equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of
the utilization of genetic resources. The Secretariat of the Convention is
located in Montreal.

[www.seedquest.com]

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