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Biopolicy International
African Centre for Technology Studies
Num. 11, 1993, pp. 1-32
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AGROBIODIVERSITY IN GLOBAL CONSERVATION POLICY
Code: BP93011
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David Wood
International Germplasm Associates
Kent, England
Published by African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS)
Biopolicy International Series no. 11
Series Editors
Calestous Juma
African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), Nairobi
John Mugabe
ACTS Biopolicy Institute, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Norman Clark
Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, UK
Walter Reid
World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, USA
Biopolicy International Series
1. Bio-pesticides in Developing Countries: Prospects and
Research
Priorities
by R. Gerrits and E.B.J. van Latum.
2. Genetic Resources and Sustainable Agriculture: Creating
Incentives for Local Innovation and Adaptation
by Walter V. Reid.
3. Conservation and Use of Agro-ecological Diversity
by Joel I. Cohen.
4. Intellectual Property, Biotechnology and Trade: The Impact
of
the Uruguay Round on Biodiversity
by Rohini Acharya.
5. Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources: Grassroots Efforts
in North America
by Kevin Dahl and Gary Paul Nabhan.
6. Biodiversity Conservation in Chile: Policies and Practices
by Jubel R. Moraga-Rojel.
7. Property Rights, Biotechnology and Genetic Resources
by Mohamed H. Khalil, Walter V. Reid and Calestous Juma.
8. Tree Rights in Kenya: The Case of the Turkana
by Edmund G.C. Barrow.
9. Biotechnology in Mexico: Opportunities and Constraints in
the
Agroindustrial Sector
by Rosalba Casas.
10. Biotechnology in Thailand
by Charles H. Davis, Thomas O. Eisemon, Yongyuth Yuthavong,
Kitiya Phornsadja and Anadi Chungcharoen.
ACTS Press logo
African Centre for Technology Studies
Nairobi, Kenya
ACTS Biopolicy Institute
Maastricht, The Netherlands
1993
David Wood, 1993
Published in Kenya in 1993 by ACTS Press,
African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS)
P.O. Box 45917, Nairobi, Kenya
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and
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This issue of Biopolicy International was published in
conjunction with the Finnish International Development Agency
(FINNIDA), Government of Norway, Initiatives Limited,
International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Pew Scholars
Program in Conservation and the Environment, Stockholm
Environment Institute (SEI), Swedish Agency for Research
Cooperation with Developing Countries (SAREC), Swedish
International Development Authority (SIDA), Swedish Society
for Nature Conservation (SSNC), United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) and WRI/IUCN/UNEP Biodiversity Programme.
Edited and typeset by Initiatives Ltd., P.O. Box 69313,
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Printed by English Press Limited, P.O. Box 30127, Nairobi
Cataloguing in Publication Data
Agrobiodiversity in global conservation policy/David
Wood. - Nairobi, Kenya : ACTS Press, African Centre for
Technology Studies, 1993.
(African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS)
Biopolicy International Series; no. 11)
ISBN 9966-41-061-9
Contents
Introduction
1. What is agrobiodiversity?
2. The distribution of important agrobiodiversity
3. Sustainable conservation for sustainable use
4. Equitable benefits from agrobiodiversity
Conclusions
Notes
References
Introduction
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 had as its theme both
the environment and development. This paper will emphasize the
needs of development and argue that the implementation of the
Convention on Biological Diversity and the "Agenda 21" process
should focus on the conservation and utilization of
agrobiodiversity - the plant and animal resources for
agricultural development.
After more than twenty years of intensive international
effort to conserve plant genetic resources for agriculture,
we are still far from having an equitable and technically
adequate system for managing these vital agrobiodiversity re-
sources for future world food production. The collection and
conservation of land races -key components of traditional
agriculture -is now faltering. In addition, the recent emphasis
on collecting wild relatives will bring few benefits to
developing countries.(1)
If there is not a clear emphasis on the use of resources,
there is a danger that the Convention on Biological Diversity
will become a charter for strict wildlife
conservation-preservation for its own sake. Development, and
particularly farming, would then be regarded as a threat to
biodiversity, rather than as a process and justification for
the management of useful biodiversity. Unfortunately, in the
past, there has been a great imbalance between funding for
agrobiodiversity and funding for megabiodiversity (as
exemplified by large numbers of species; ecosystems with large
trees; and large or charismatic animals). For example, a
recent survey of US funding for biodiversity conservation
globally revealed that of a total of 873 projects, there are
only four projects dealing with genetic resources for
agriculture, compared to multiple projects on elephants,
birds, and pandas.(2)
An emphasis on agrobiodiversity can meet the three
objectives of the Biological Diversity Convention:
conservation; sustainable use; and the equitable sharing of
benefits from the use of biodiversity. Each of these three
objectives is specifically addressed here from the viewpoint
of developing country agriculture: conservation with an
emphasis on dynamic in situ conservation under traditional
farming systems; the sustainable use of agrobiodiversity as
most appropriate for environmentally-friendly, low-input agri-
culture and for marginal conditions; and‘given the high
commercial value of agrobiodiversity‘the equitable sharing of
benefits as a mechanism to generate funding for the national
conservation of agrobiodiversity and for national agricultural
development. However, great care is needed to design equitable
benefit mechanisms without reducing international access to
agrobiodiversity. Most developing countries, including Kenya
for example, are highly dependent on introduced crops.(3)
This study points to lessons that can be learned from past
efforts in the conservation and utilization of plant genetic
resources, and will suggest a new emphasis on agrobiodiversity
that could avoid problems of the past and address the complex
needs of the future. As there are signs of a reduced inter-
national interest in, and funding for, agrobiodiversity of
relevance to developing countries, special attention is given
to ways of making national sovereignty over agrobiodiversity
more effective through the generation of adequate funding
independent of the short-term needs and interests of inter-
national donors. The multiple roles of traditional farmers as
generators, users, and conservers of biodiversity of global
importance will be stressed.
1. What is agrobiodiversity?
In the living world, diversity can exist at many levels, from
genes, through individuals, populations, species, and,
ultimately, for the taxonomist, higher taxa such as genera and
families. For the ecologist, it includes communities and
ecosystems. Interactions within and between the various levels
of biodiversity result in an almost infinite variation. It is
this abundant variation that is the raw material of natural
selection, and, in turn, it is the changing intensity and
directions of natural selection that processes variation into
functional units - from genes to ecosystems. Very simply,
biodiversity is both a product (in many cases a by-product)
of past evolutionary processes, and the essential raw
materials of future evolution. The idea of the evolutionary
process, leading to organized structure and inter-
relationships, rather than random variation and chaos, is a
key concept for the conservation and utilization of biodi-
versity.
"Agrobiodiversity" focuses on that part of biodiversity
which has been selected and modified by millennia of human
utilization to better serve human needs. Agrobiodiversity is
pre-eminently useful biodiversity. The most obvious and
important manifestation of agrobiodiversity is the enormous
diversity of plant and animal varieties generated by a range
of peoples in most of the warmer regions of the world in the
past 10,000 years. However, the process of modification of
biodiversity by humans and in the human interest did not begin
with such plant and animal varieties, important and
interesting as they now are, and will certainly not end with
them. Three stages of agrobiodiversity generation can be
recognized, corresponding to the three levels of biodiversity
now commonly accepted‘the ecosystem; the species; and the
gene.
The first effects of humans on biodiversity were probably
the progressive modifications of ecosystems resulting from
hunter-gathering - burning of vegetation, thereby changing its
composition; collecting plant propagules as food, and thereby
favouring some species over others; and progressively
eliminating the larger animals (including megafauna),(4) with
increasing pressure on smaller animals and vegetation. Weeds
could flourish as a result of disturbance‘indeed one of the
best-known examples of a medicinal plant, Catharanthus roseus,
the rosy periwinkle, is a weed and ornamental, spread
throughout the tropics by human agency and not, as
conservationist literature often claims, a plant of the
tropical rainforest. Leucaena leucocephala, a nitrogen-fixing
tree of great importance in agroforestry, is another species
representing ecosystem agrobiodiversity, as in its native
habitat in Central America it is highly characteristic of
secondary vegetation.
Some of the results of these modifications to ecosystem
agrobiodiversity were very much in the interest of humans, for
example, the expansion of grassland over forest, and the
spread of weedy species. This led to the second, and major,
stage in the human modification of biodiversity - herding and
crop production - with direct and indirect selection of a wide
range of plant and animals species for features of value. Many
crops had weedy precursors, and now have weedy relatives. It
has been noted that: "Cultivation and the disturbances
associated with it are factors of major importance leading to
genetic variability, and are of exceptional interest."(5). The
agrobiodiversity represented by domesticated plants and
animals‘and the knowledge of how to manage and further modify
it‘allowed a massive expansion of human impact, for example
the movement of the Bantu through Africa.
We are now well into the third stage of generating and
manipulating agrobiodiversity, at the level of the gene, with
directed plant breeding and genetic engineering to produce
organisms (and bio-industrial processes) for the further ser-
vicing of human needs. For most of its history and successes,
plant breeding has depended on land races of crops as a source
of useful characters. Now the continuing need for pest and
disease resistance to overcome the breakdown of disease
resistances in uniform, widespread varieties of major crops
has forced breeders to widen the search from crops to crop
relatives in an often desperate search for genetic
agrobiodiversity.(6)
A good example of the effort needed to identify useful
characteristics from wild relatives is a recently completed
project (with a careful field and laboratory study)on the
relatives of wheat in Israel.(7) These species are weedy, and
are found in plant communities disturbed by grazing or even
fire, and are excellent sources of resistance to a range of
important wheat diseases. It is now possible to include in the
concept of genetic agrobiodiversity species quite unrelated
to crops. An extreme example is the genetic manipulation of
plants using viral coat proteins to produce genetic resistance
to viruses: this resistance is passed on to subsequent
generations of the plant.
The transition from one level to the next depends on the
resources of agrobiodiversity of the previous stage. For
example, the move to the second stage depended on the
ecosystems modified during the first stage; the transition
from the second stage to the third stage depends, at least
initially, on the useful diversity of species of domesticated
plant and animals generated by the second stage.
Unfortunately, transition has tended to destroy the human and
biotic resources of the former stages. For example, evolution
of the second stage (agricultural expansion) forced hunter-
gatherers to the fringes of world history and severely
threatened the often marginal ecosystems on which these
diverse peoples depend. The evolution of the third stage,
plant breeding and biotechnology, has caused great concern
over loss of land race resources generated by the second
stage.
Belatedly, we have recognized that we both depend on and
tend to destroy the heritage of previous stages of human
manipulation of the biosphere. A major concern of
international conservation has been directed to biodiversity
threatened by the transition between the first and second
stages of our cultural evolution‘the supposedly "natural"
ecosystems of forest, grassland, tundra and desert, inhabited
by hunter-gatherers, and still under pressure from agriculture
or pastoralism. To continue to emphasize the conservation of
supposedly natural ecosystems and rare and endangered species
could threaten the conservation and utilization of the species
and varietal agrobiodiversity threatened by the transition
from the second to the third stages of our manipulation of the
biosphere.
This transition is characterized by the rapid change from
pastoralism and traditional crop production to mechanized
agriculture, scientific plant breeding and biotechnology. It
is the dynamic process of varietal diversification in
traditional farming that distinguishes agrobiodiversity from
plant genetic resources conservation, which has been a static,
and none too successful, process of preserving samples for
breeders. We still have the opportunity to study and emulate
the enormous capacity of traditional farmers to generate and
manipulate agrobiodiversity. This directed selection of the
"muscle" of agrobiodiversity from the potentially useful, but
amorphous "fat" of biodiversity has been and remains, a key
process in world agriculture. However, the opportunity to
study and use species and varietal agrobiodiversity is rapidly
passing with the loss of traditional farming systems and their
dynamic management of associated species, varieties, and
indigenous knowledge systems. If the convention is to better
serve the interests of developing countries, a greater
emphasis on agrobiodiversity is urgently needed.
2. The distribution of important agrobiodiversity
Origin of land race agrobiodiversity
The great Russian agricultural botanist, Vavilov, paid tribute
to the role of traditional farmers in the origin of land race
agrobiodiversity:
Hunger and the constant search for food have forced
primitive peoples to select for their food all plants
suitable for cultivation in temperate and sub-tropical
climates. Great accomplishments have been made in this
direction throughout past centuries by unknown breeders.
One can only marvel at the diversity of varieties and
species of wheat, barley, corn, sorghum and legumes, all
of which were known in primitive civilizations. It is not
easy to find competitors to our present cereals; it would
be very difficult to replace wheat, rice, and corn by
other cultivated plants.(8)
Traditional farming systems are by far the richest source of
agrobiodiversity: around 60 per cent of the world's
agricultural land is still farmed by traditional or
subsistence methods.(9) Traditional farmers have a
significant ability to manage intraspecific diversity of
land races, for example, the Aguaruna Jivaro community in
the Peruvian Amazon grow 61 distinct cultivars of cas-
sava.(10) A small community in the Andes grew 178 locally
named potato varieties.(11) There is now welcome attention
to the role of traditional farmers in the management of
agrobiodiversity, including a recent meeting in Nairobi
sponsored by the Centre Tropicale de Agriculture (CTA),
International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR), the
Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and a Wageningen
Agricultural University/Environment and Development
Activities-Zimbabwe/Centre for Genetic Resources in
Netherlands/Genetic Resources Action International
(WAU/ENDA/CGN/GRAIN) meeting in Harare. Shifting
agriculture, which involves 500 million people on 8.3 per
cent of the world's tropical land area,(12) is characterized
by a very great diversity of agrobiodiversity.
Distribution of the agrobiodiversity of wild relatives
Importance of drier areas
While a great part of global biodiversity is found in the
lowland tropical forests, these are not the most important
regions for agrobiodiversity. This inverse relation between
species richness and crop origins has been noted: "Many of the
world‘s most economically important species are found in areas
where species diversity is not great. None of the world's
major food crops originated in tropical rain
forests. . . . Most important food crops appear to have
originated where seasons are pronounced, so it makes sense to
look there (and not in tropical rain forests) for promising new
crops."(13)
In fact, drier ecosystems are far more important than
rain forests for crop resources and are relatively neglected.
Harlan considered that "The most productive formations in
terms of agricultural development were the Near Eastern
woodlands and the tropical savannas and dry forests. Both
formations are rich in species including trees and
grasses . . . . The annual floras from which so many major
crops are derived mainly evolved under the constraints of long
dry seasons. . . . Climates with long dry seasons appear to
be necessary for the most productive ecosystems for plant
domestication."(14)
Importance of disturbance
Undisturbed "natural" ecosystems were of little importance in
the origin of crops. In the literature on crop origins there
are repeated references to the importance of disturbance, for
example: "Cultivation and the disturbances associated with it
are factors of major importance leading to genetic vari-
ability, and are of exceptional interest."(15) The most
important family of economic plants, the grasses, has given
rise to many important cereals. De Wet noted that: "Cultivated
cereal species are annuals, and their closest wild relatives
are aggressive annual colonizers of disturbed
habitats." . . . "Colonizing ability is essential in
domestication."(16) The following extended quotation from
Clayton and Renvoize illustrates the importance and origin of
agrobiodiversity in the grass family, and the transition from
ecosystem agrobiodiversity to species agrobiodiversity:
. . . the success of the grasses lies primarily in the
evolution of a versatile life-style adapted to unstable or
fluctuating environments, particularly those associated
with strongly seasonal rainfall regimes or the early
stages of succession following disturbance. This life-form
then proved readily adaptable to a partnership with fire
and herbivores, creating the highly competitive grassland
ecosystem. Finally their propensity for exploiting
instability has made them partner to the revolutionary
changes in landscapes induced by man. . . . Lastly there
came man, to exploit the unique nutritional and keeping
qualities of the grass endosperm. "Ramassage", the
opportunistic harvesting of pure stands of wild grass, was
the first stage in this process, and even today some of
the minor crops of subsistence farming lie on this bor-
derline of agriculture. Deliberate cultivation began some
10,000 years ago with the appropriation of weedy annual
species that could be reliably established from seed in a
wide range of habitats.(17)
Most terrestrial ecosystems have been profoundly
modified by human intervention to better serve human needs,
and are not "wildlands". There is increasing evidence that
conservationist perceptions of the "naturalness" of tropical
vegetation may be mistaken.(18) Many tropical forested areas
resulted from a rapid regrowth of vegetation following the
massive decline in the indigenous population after European
colonization.(19) Conservationist practice directed at these
modified ecosystems can neither understand nor replicate the
type and intensity of past human management: the richness of
ecosystem agrobiodiversity (dependent on dynamic human
intervention) could be jeopardized by attempts at preserving
the status quo.
A notable wild relative of maize, Zea diploperennis,
depends on the survival of a traditional agricultural
system: "For example, the largest population of Z.
diploperennis is located in the valley of San Miguel, where
almost all of the 320 ha are under cultivation. Apparently
Z. diploperennis not only withstands but actually prospers
under grazing and cultivation . . . However, where stands of
the species are left to the process of secondary succession,
as is the case with the population at Las Joyas Scientific
Station, the stands appear to diminish over time. These
findings suggest that, for the purpose of in situ
conservation, Z. diploperennis and its agroecosystem are
inseparable."(20) Oryza nivara (an important source of
resistance to rice grassy stunt virus, and often given as an
example of the need to preserve wild ecosystems)is a weed
needing open areas and the disturbance of agroecosystems for
survival.
In addition to incorrect management decisions based on
false assumptions of "naturalness", conservationist concerns
over species numbers and levels of endemicity, which are
proposed as the main criteria for attention, will divert
attention away from the far more important
agrobiodiversity.(21)
3. Sustainable conservation for sustainable use
To ensure that there can be sustainable agriculture - and
everyone seems to agree that this is necessary - it is
imperative that priority be given to the sustainable
conservation of the resources of agrobiodiversity on which
agriculture depends. However, the intended method of future
utilization of the resource will largely determine the range
of resources to be conserved, and even the conservation
technology adopted. This paper therefore looks first at the
ways in which agrobiodiversity is used, and the implications
of this use on conservation policy and technology.
The concept of sustainable use of resources is not a new
one: a report on tropical agriculture of 1945 listed as a
major policy objective: the preservation and improvement of
the productive powers of the basic natural resources of the
country.(22) There has been a substantial critique of the
concept of sustainable development. For example, Beckerman
has argued that sustainability is a goal that cannot be
defined: "therefore, there is no answer to questions such as
"how do we achieve sustainable development?" Scientists,
even social scientists, should not expect to be taken
seriously if they go around asking unanswerable and
meaningless questions." Further, that "to take drastic
action in the pursuit of this goal
[sustainability] . . . would represent an unjustified
sacrifice of the clearly apparent interests of billions of
very poor people today."(23) However, for the purpose of
this paper, I shall not take issue with the concept of
sustainability other than to argue that sustained
agricultural production depends on priority being given to
the sustainable management of agrobiodiversity.
It is a major thesis of this paper that the sustainable
utilization of organisms is the best way of demonstrating
the value of biodiversity and thereby ensuring its
conservation:
. . . the protection of the world's biological diversity
can only be accomplished if it is integrated within
multipurpose land use, with sustainable benefits to hu-
manity seen to be derived from an appropriate part of the
managed areas. To be effective, control of land use has to
be substantially vested in local institutions, with the
participation of local people who have been enabled to
perceive that management for sustainable use is in their
own self-interest.(24)
Inappropriate breeding?
The main purpose of formal attempts at conserving
agrobiodiversity in the past has been to provide samples for
advanced breeding programmes, in the service of high-input
mechanized agriculture. The possibility of combining
conservation and use within the farming system has been
disrupted by the intervention of the breeder. The Convention
on Biological Diversity and Agenda 21 place emphasis on the
sustainable use of biodiversity, and it is therefore relevant
to query here whether formal breeding is the most appropriate
use of agrobiodiversity.
There is increasing evidence that the formal breeding
sector has not well served the needs of farmers in developing
countries. Modern plant breeding leads inevitably to an
extremely dangerous reduction of diversity in major world
crops. Early attention to plant genetic resource conservation
recognized that modern breeding depended on land races (also
known as traditional varieties):
Indigenous locally adapted races of cultivated
plants - usually known as primitive cultivars - are the
product of agroecotypic differentiation during ten thou-
sand years of conscious and unconscious selection by man
in the diverse conditions of cultivation in many habitats.
Genetically, they are marked by high level of adaptation
to climate and disease, and high variability, and these
factors render primitive cultivars essential in plant
breeding.(25)
Unfortunately, under advanced farming systems the
essentials of on-farm evolution‘that is, the generation of
variation and its subsequent natural and farmer selection‘are
no longer possible. A wide range of often legal constraints
(including plant varietal rights with requirements for
distinctness, uniformity and stability; seed laws; and
national recommended lists) prevents the on-farm build-up of
within- and between-variety variation, the essential substrate
for selection for adaptation to local environmental
constraints. Mechanized agriculture pre vents the intimate
handling of plants and seed necessary for farmers to identify
and select preferred characteristics.
This leads to an extremely dangerous reduction of
diversity in major world crops, as noted by Simmonds:
Successful plant breeding tends to narrow the genetic base
of a crop in rough proportion to its success; in all
advanced, technology-based agriculture, few excellent
varieties, themselves often inter-related, tend to cover
large areas of land to the exclusion of all else.(26)
In addition to the "bottleneck" effect during plant
breeding, the diversity on which many important varieties were
based was very limited, so there is also a "founder" effect.
As an example, most varieties of the US soybean crop can be
traced to fifty original introductions, only ten of which con-
tributed to 80 per cent of northern, and seven to 80 per cent
of southern cultivars. Most introductions originated from
North East China.(27) There is a particular danger with vari-
eties based on limited sources of cytoplasmic male
sterility - found, for example, in wheat, maize, rice,
sorghum,(28) pearl millet and sugar beet.
The outbreak of southern corn leaf blight in the US in
1969-1970 was the first plant disease epidemic to shock a
nation into the realization that many of our major crops rest
on a narrow genetic base and consequently are highly vul-
nerable to attack by new forms of disease and insect
pests.(29) The real need is for varieties based on a range of
different genetic backgrounds. The US National Plant Genetic
Resources Board noted that "it is imperative, therefore, that
attempts be made to restore a necessary measure of genetic
diversity through the use of new and unrelated sources of
germplasm."(30)
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre
(CIMMYT) has estimated that two-thirds of its total effort in
wheat improvement relates to maintenance research, primarily,
but not exclusively, on disease resistance.(31) Modern wheat
varieties have an average life of only seven years in
developed and developing countries due to the breakdown of
disease resistance; in Mexico, varietal life is less than four
years.(32) While vulnerability can be monitored, varietal re-
placement in developing countries may be difficult to effect:
"The slow rate of varietal replacement has left much wheat
area in the Punjab exposed to severe risk of a rust epidemic
for most of the past decade."(33) In 1986/87, scientists esti-
mated a 10 per cent loss in wheat fields in Pakistan planted
to susceptible varieties such as "Blue Silver" (= Sonalika),
WL-711, and Yecora. Both WL-711 and Yecora were removed from
the list of recommended varieties in 1982, but the informal
seed sector continued to multiply these susceptible varieties.
Sonalika is the most popular CIMMYT variety, now planted on
eight million heCTAres in the Third World.
It was noted in a review of the CIMMYT wheat rust
programme, that by intense effort and much expenditure,
developed countries have usually kept wheat rust under
control; rich countries can bear the loss of not infrequent
failures. Third World countries often cannot apply the
necessary scientific effort, and the cost of failure is
worse.(34) The CIMMYT review also suggested that national
breeders could discard varieties relying on major genes for
resistance and improve resistance by the use of appropriate
land races. The editor of the CIMMYT review had previously
argued(35) that small farmers and poor societies are particu-
larly at risk in view of the potential defects of disease re-
sistance as pure-line varieties spread over very large areas
previously occupied by a mosaic of local varieties. Lenné and
Wood, in a review that surveyed problems of the use of wild
relatives in resistance breeding in crops, also recommended
a broadening of the genetic base of crops, rather than a
continuing reliance on resistance breeding to temporarily
overcome pests and diseases.(36)
Inappropriate conservation?
Conservation of agrobiodiversity ex situ
Past attempts at the scientific conservation of plant
resources have specifically been to provide a service for
plant breeding. Conservation has been predominantly ex situ:
that is, samples have been collected, moved to botanic gar-
dens, field collections and, most commonly, genebank cold
stores. The collection of samples removes them from the
conditions under which they evolved their distinctive (and
useful) properties. Continuing evolution to changing
conditions (including global warming) is no longer possible.
In addition, the local knowledge on how, when, and where to
use the resources is usually lost.
After collection, during ex situ management, a wide range
of additional problems are found. A consultation of the IBPGR
on wild and primitive cultivar germplasm noted that
collections left in the country of origin were often lost, and
that germplasm curators could contribute more to genetic
erosion in storage than could occur in the field.(37) Loss of
collections during management may amount in some cases to 50
per cent of the original samples; such losses negate the
scientific and financial outlay involved in the formation of
collections.(38) For wild species, ex situ conservation of
germplasm is particularly problematical.(39) Even for the much
more easily managed land races, problems abound. For example,
many seed collections are infected with seed-borne viral,
fungal, and bacterial pathogens. These organisms persist for
many years during storage, move internationally during
germplasm exchange, and readily pass from plant to plant
during field multiplication.
For the very many crops which are normally clonally
propagated (because they do not produce viable seed, or
because genetic segregation prevents the recovery of the
desired parental type) tissue culture maintenance may offer
an acceptable storage technology. However, laboratories are
needed, and limited capacity may reduce sample numbers below
the level needed for an adequate representation of
variability. For example, the International Potato Centre
(CIP) in Peru has the capacity to store 2,000 accessions of
sweet potato in its global collection, however, there are an
estimated 5,000 varieties in Papua New Guinea alone.
Policy problems with ex situ collections
There are substantial technical difficulties with ex situ
germplasm conservation, and substantial policy problems and
failures. The policy decision to locate the most important
base collections of germplasm in developed countries (or in
international research institutes controlled by developed
countries) has often been criticized.
Technical management policy has also been criticized. An
authoritative review of legume genetic resources noted that:
The present time is crucial for collection and
conservation of crop genetic resources: in the case of the
grain legumes no comprehensively consistent or coherent
strategy has as yet evolved. . . . There could be
considerable gain in the effectiveness of this effort if
there were to be more overt rationalisation, co-ordination
of conservation activities and the adoption of consistent
procedures.(40)
It was noted twenty-five years ago that the
conservation of wild relatives brings additional policy
problems: efforts on " . . . the wild relatives of culti-
vated species on which we lean increasingly as sources for
disease and pest resistance [are] oriented by the interests
of single nations or institutes . . . results are not
generally available or even generally known. Nor are there
concerted efforts . . . to conserve significant populations
or sites in natural habitats in the gene centres."(41)
At a time when "sustainability" has become an important
criterion for agriculture, there is very little
sustainability to funding for ex situ conservation. Major
germplasm stores providing key resources for plant breeding
are located in the International Agricultural Research
Centres (IARCs), and funded on a yearly basis by voluntary
contributions of industrialised countries to the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR). Until recently, the main objective of the IARCs has
been increasing agricultural production in developing
countries. It is therefore alarming to read that: "It should
be recognised that industrialised countries may become
increasingly reluctant to allow bilateral development
agencies to provide support for . . . research on major
commodities if it is perceived that this competes with their
export capabilities . . . "(42)
If the sustained management of international germplasm
both depends on donors and is also in conflict with donor
export interests then either more secure methods of
conservation, or more certain funding, should be urgently
identified. Part of the following account will address these
two needs.
Appropriate breeding
There is increasing recognition that the diverse needs of
resource-poor farmers cannot be addressed by the breeding of
a restricted range of high-yielding, high-input varieties.
Yields of improved varieties in favourable conditions have
reached a plateau in many countries,(43) or even subsequently
declined. It has been suggested that "a range of varieties are
needed to fulfil specific socio-economic as well as agro-
ecological needs in the small farm system" and that "breeding
methods need to be reassessed urgently to increase the ability
of formal sector agricultural research to produce varieties
useful to small farmers."(44)
A World Bank review of small-scale farming in Africa
noted that:
. . . after forty years of breeding on sorghum and millet
at internationally supported research stations in West
Africa, less than five per cent of the crop is planted to
such material because it does not meet most farmers'
needs. . . . [the] fundamental need is for increased
exposure of research staff to farmers and their actual
situations if there is to be a significant change in the
pattern of agronomic research which has prevailed for the
past fifty years.(45)
The author also argued that: " . . . there are still abundant
examples of major plant breeding programs which do not take
account of the real constraints faced by many farmers. This
is equally applicable to national and international programs."
Smartt argued: "Sophisticated and advanced methodologies are
quite out of place on most breeding programmes in the
developing world, where the basic strategies of local
collection, introduction and selection have yet to be fully
exploited."(46)
In a broad review of plant improvement for sustainable
agriculture, Ceccaralli et al. noted that plant breeders must
adopt an overall strategy that differs from present strategies
in national and international breeding programmes.(47)
Requirements include concerted efforts on plant genetic re-
source management, evaluation under farmer conditions,
adaptation to unfavourable conditions, and re-examining the
role of diversity (mixed cropping and genetic variability
within crops) to achieve production stability.
There are already successful examples of appropriate
breeding that can be adopted and expanded from developing
country breeding programmes. It is well known that farmers can
often actively manage a large number of crop varieties than
they have. However, farmer access to a wide range of varieties
may be limited, and is certainly never encouraged by the
formal breeding sector, which reduces variation, rather than
amplifies it. When rice farmers in two villages in Uttar
Pradesh, India, were given new rice cultivars to manage under
their own low input conditions, yields compared with local
land races almost doubled (from 0.64 and 0.70 t/ha to 1.18 and
1.44 t/ha).(48 Allowing farmers to participate in the varietal
selection process resulted in the use of varieties tailored
to localized conditions. "The approach, by recognizing the
need for diverse varieties within villages, and even within
farms, reverses breeders' conventional aspirations to supply
a single variety to as wide a "recommendation domain" as
possible."(49)
A rigid system of variety trials may even prevent useful
varieties getting to farmers. The rice variety "Mahsuri",
introduced from Malaysia, was rejected in All-India trials,
but spread informally from farmer cultivation in Andhra
Pradesh to become the third most popular variety in India. The
great interest and ability of farmers in managing variation
should be encouraged as a location-specific complement to the
work of institutional breeders. A review of constraints on of-
ficial seed diffusion noted that: "studies have shown that new
varieties are not a priority for all crops, given the
considerable on-farm selection and improvement that has been
achieved in some areas" and that "most farmers want new
varieties from organised seed distribution channels primarily
to experiment with and multiply themselves".(50)
Impressive arguments have been made on the farmers' ability
to assess the value of germplasm: "Playing with rice is a
national sport of rural Sierra Leone . . . It is quite common
for farmers to take careful note, using their own system of
volumetric measurement, on input-output ratios when they lay
out trials of this sort."(51)
The World Bank review of small-scale farming in Africa,
provides a strong justification for the direct use of
germplasm collections by farmers, in their attempt to overcome
constraints, by pointing to the need for:
. . . the development of a greater awareness of the
potential for indigenous material and the possibilities
that exist for moving locally developed cultivars to other
comparable areas. Thousands of local cultivars have been
selected over long periods of time but many are confined
to small geographical areas . . . As conditions change in
a particular area as a result of population increase, soil
fertility decline, new pest outbreak or changes in
rainfall pattern, there are often opportunities to
introduce locally selected material from elsewhere which
has features which are adapted to the new environment . .
. There has been a tendency to under-rate the value of
traditional cultivars . . . (52)
There will be environmental benefits from promoting a
greater use of land races. Environmental pollution caused by
pesticide residues and high nitrate run-off from fertilizer
application is now a major concern in developed countries
and is leading to problems in developing countries. A
significant threat to the long-term control of diseases
arises from a breakdown in the effects of pesticides and
host-plant resistance through mutation in the pest or
parasite.(53) Land races, developed over thousands of years
of zero application of agrochemicals, are preadapted to grow
without chemical inputs, and therefore of value to the
future needs of all countries, developing or developed.
Traditional knowledge of adaptation to low nutrients or high
disease pressure may be of global value. Farmers in Rwanda
select bean mixtures that are known to perform better in
poor soils.(54) Andean potato farmers practice "cultivation
of certain frost-resistant varieties in flat, bottom areas
of the high valley where frost, but not late blight is
common. Other varieties are planted on hillsides where late
blight, but not frost is common."(55)
The recognition, dissemination and wider use of land race
varieties may be both more relevant to the needs of poor
farmers and also less damaging to the environment than the
use of improved varieties. In tropical countries "maximum
local adaptability has evolved for thousands of years. As a
result, land races have "local ecosystem adaptation" in the
peasant agriculture in which they have evolved. They are
adapted to the diverse physical stresses and biological
problems of local areas where they are grown under low in-
puts and low densities, sometimes in mixed cropping
systems."(56) Scientists from the International Centre for
Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) have presented
a strong case for land races "as genetic components of
stability."(57) In the Middle East "landraces form the
backbone of crop genetic improvement. They are genetically
diverse populations which are well adapted to their
surroundings and pathogens as a result of which certain
genotypes in the population may have advantages in one
season whereas others do better in other seasons."(58) The
local ecosystem and its adversities may be matched by
germplasm from other regions, which evolved under similar
adverse conditions, indicating the possibility of the
successful transfer of germplasm.
Several crops used in traditional agriculture are
multipurpose, most commonly with requirements for grain and
straw yield - for example, sorghum. While there has been a
considerable promotion of multipurpose trees, multipurpose
crops have been neglected. Germplasm and information about
the specific uses of the crop are needed, both for
conservation and for utilization.
The very great importance of intercropping in many
traditional agricultural systems dictates that emphasis is
given to germplasm from intercrop systems, and for intercrop
systems. Intercropping and multiple cropping systems, where
there is a close spatial or temporal association between
different crops, account for a great proportion of crop
production in many countries: for example 76 per cent of
maize, 90 per cent of millet, 95 per cent of peanut, and 99
per cent of cowpea in Nigeria; 84 per cent of maize, 56 per
cent of peanut, 81 per cent of beans, and 76 per cent of
pigeon peas in Uganda; and 90 per cent of beans in
Colombia.(59) There is considerable evidence that low
resource farmers prefer to retain complex mixtures of crop
species. It has been noted that "In many cases, crops have
become coadapted to each other as a result of practices such
as intercropping. Such methods (essential to subsistence
agriculture) may be lost when materials are collected and
stored apart from their native surroundings."(60)
The involvement of farmers in the management of
agrobiodiversity is now starting to receive the attention it
deserves. Ten years ago, in a workshop at the Ethiopian
genebank, the provision of an extended range of germplasm to
farmers in order to encourage their potential for varietal
management was recommended by the author.(61) Ethiopia now
has a substantial national programme for the continued
involvement of farmers in the management of
agrobiodiversity, for which further funding has been sought
under the Global Environment Facility (GEF). A broader
proposal for the farmer management of germplasm in
developing countries is under consideration in the
Netherlands.(62)
If these initiatives combining in situ conservation with
utilization are to be free of problems of the kind that have
reduced the effectiveness of ex situ conservation, then
close technical monitoring will be necessary. Our enthusiasm
for the potential of dynamic conservation will need to be
tempered with a realistic view of the complexities of
traditional farming, and the great difficulties in achieving
transferable results. A lesson we can learn from the ex situ
conservation of resources is that donor interest may come to
dominate the objectives of the process. This danger is
unfortunately built into the GEF process, which focuses on
global, rather than national or local, environmental needs.
A proposed GEF project in Turkey, for the in situ conser-
vation of plant genetic resources, already shows that
genetic resources vital for donor agriculture (the gene pool
of wheat) will be a focus of attention. This illustrates the
constant danger of donor interests predominating, rather
than the needs of developing countries. Funding for the GEF
process by developed countries should not be used as a carte
blanche to continue to extract germplasm of value to the
agriculture of developed countries.
Appropriate conservation
In situ conservation under traditional dynamic management
Given the problems and failings of ex situ germplasm
management, what advantages are offered by in situ
conservation? There is a growing literature on the role of
traditional farming and conservation.(63) In the context of
on-farm maintenance of agrobiodiversity, the term "living gene
banks" has been used,(64) with the argument that farmers are
dynamic partners in conservation and should be paid to
maintain diversity. It has been noted that more than simple
maintenance is involved: farmers actively manage and enhance
germplasm by selecting for a changing spectrum of needs:
"farmers have been dedicated plant and animal breeders for
thousands of years, although not in the precise manner of
modern genetics. They have consciously maintained diversity,
planted mixed fields systematically to achieve natural
crosses, practised selection and set up their own personal
genebanks as well as far-flung exchange systems for acquiring
genetic resources."(65)
It is important to note that maximum variation and diversity
have never been the aim of traditional farming. Diversity was
a raw material to be processed into a suitable spectrum of
crops and varieties for specific conditions. For many crops,
opportunities for maximizing variation within the crop have
been strictly avoided through vegetative propagation - a
standard procedure for root and tuber crops, and fruit trees.
On the other hand, uniformity has been avoided by exchange of
samples between farmers and a high interest in new varieties.
In situ conservation of agrobiodiversity realistically
combines both the conservation and the utilization of
agrobiodiversity relevant to the farmer. Decisions by vested
interests in far-off places are not needed.
In situ conservation of wild relatives
Until recently, the in situ conservation of wild relatives of
crops of high strategic importance has been relatively
neglected. This in spite of the recommendation of the 1972 UN
Stockholm Conference that wild germplasm of use in agriculture
and forestry should be maintained within its natural com-
munities. The value of, and possibilities for, in situ
conservation of wild relatives has recently been em-
phasized.(66)
The interface between varietal agrobiodiversity and
ecosystem agrobiodiversity needs to be further emphasized in
in situ conservation. A review on sustainable agriculture
noted that: "there has been a lack of creative thinking about
how traditional agroecosystems and natural environments of
wild crop relatives could be preserved."(67)
Many of the outstanding uses of wild relatives by modern
breeders (for example, in potato and wheat)followed earlier
natural introgression of characters under traditional
farming, where crops, weeds, and wild relatives co-exist.
Modern farming prevents the necessary close mixing of compo-
nents, and modern seed production prevents the persistence of
any location-specific adaptive changes resulting from
introgression. It is therefore important to give priority for
study and collection (and in situ conservation)(68) of remain-
ing complexes associated with subsistence farming. However,
the past contact between crops and their wild relatives, which
has been essential for crop evolution, is now seriously
threatened by conservationist proposals. A recent
recommendation to the Committee of Ministers of the Council
of Europe seeks to prevent "genetic contamination, by
cultivated varieties, of wild progenitors of cultivated
plants, in particular by establishing buffer zones."(69) While
no doubt well-meaning, this protectionist recommendation
clearly shows the need for informed input to the
agrobiodiversity conservation debate.
Plant introduction and the sustainable utilization of
agrobiodiversity
Most developing countries rely for most of their food
production on introduced crops.(70) In Africa, crops of
African origin (including sorghum, cowpea, and pearl millet)
account for only 30 per cent of continental production, while
crops originating in the Americas (including potato, maize,
common bean, sweet potato, cassava) contribute 44 per cent,
and Asian crops (rice, banana) 26 per cent. Rwanda, with its
staple bean-sweet potato production system, has an 88 per cent
reliance on introduced crops; Sahelian countries (and
Ethiopia) with indigenous and drought-resistant sorghum,
cowpea and pearl millet, have a low dependence. The figure for
Kenya is 53 per cent, below the mean. The reason for a high
reliance on introduced crops is probably (but not certainly)
that the production of introduced crops is not constrained by
native pests and diseases. Similar figures could no doubt be
calculated for pasture grasses and legumes,(71) agroforestry
species (Leucaena), forest trees (with the notorious example
of Eucalyptus), and weeds. The aggressiveness of introduced
species therefore both has potential and is a danger, and
national quarantine regulations are designed to increase the
potential (as with crop introductions) and reduce the danger
(of pests, diseases, and weeds).
The relevance of this "introduction effect" to the Convention
is twofold:
* care must be taken with the introduction of aliens
already
treated in Article 8 (h);
* there can be a decided bonus to sustainable agriculture
in an expanded programme of introduction of crop and
pasture species to continents where their co-evolved
pest and diseases are lacking. With no native pests and
diseases, introduced crops, pasture species and trees
can thrive with a lower use of pesticides. This is not
treated at all in the convention, but is of great
importance to developing country agriculture.
There is considerable evidence that traditional farmers can
productively manage and further diversify introduced crops.
Indeed some of the best examples of biological diversification
follow informal introduction of traditional varieties into
traditional systems. In some cases this is entirely prior to
European contact. Sweet potato, originally from South America,
was distributed throughout the Pacific by the Polynesian
navigators and reached New Zealand at least a thousand years
ago. There is now a spectacular diversity of sweet potato in
Papua New Guinea, in areas unknown to Europe until sixty years
ago. Secondary diversification (away from the centre of origin
of the crop) is a feature of Africa, with important examples
from Ethiopia (wheat, barley); Uganda (bananas); and Rwanda
and Malawi (common bean). The Strategic Plan of ICRISAT, a
major crop research institute, argues that "introducing crops
to new environments where there are fewer yield-reducing pests
and diseases is a proven method of increasing agricultural
production."
Agenda 21 should certainly address the enormous potential
for the trans-continental introduction of land race varieties
to traditional farming systems, and the subsequent management
of this agrobiodiversity. Model projects could include the
introduction of traditional Andean crops to the Himalayas,(72)
and the use of the American Peach Palm (Bactris gasipaes) in
agroforestry systems in Africa.
The need for continued support for formal breeding
The promotion of farm-level initiatives should not blind us
to the fact that most countries depend on formal breeding and
mechanized agriculture to feed expanding urban populations.
To dismiss formal-sector breeding in developing countries will
condemn countries to a future of commodity imports from coun-
tries with active and well-supported breeding.
A major constraint to overcoming problems of appropriate
breeding has been the low priority and funding for national
efforts in breeding, rather than some conspiracy on the part
of transnational seed companies. Commercial plant breeding is
very expensive and is increasingly the domain of private
companies who do not have the resources or interest to breed
for marginal conditions and location-specific constraints. A
lack of breeders is particularly acute in developing
countries, where the need for varieties specifically tailored
to local needs is great. Shands has noted that: "The breeder
of the future will be more dependent upon the world's
germplasm for his crop. Organized breeding in institutions has
been a luxury of the developed nations but a necessity for
developing nations."(73) It has also been pointed out that
"unless more breeders are recruited in developing countries,
then the benefits of the current moves to improve the
efficiency of genebanks will principally flow to the developed
countries which are well serviced by breeders and supporting
experimental biologists."(74)
Breeders have usually not given attention to varieties for
intercropping (or for inclusion in varietal mixtures
preferred by many traditional farmers). Samples collected for
the specific purpose of subsequent use as intercrops should
a) have detailed information of how and why they were used in
the traditional system, and b) a cross-reference to germplasm
samples of the other intercrops in the system from which they
were collected. At present, the maize component of a
maize/beans intercrop encountered by a collector from the
International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT, with a
global responsibility for Phaseolus beans) would be ignored
as outside the CIAT mandate - yet that specific maize variety
may be the key to the performance of the bean variety in a
future intercrop. Far greater flexibility in collecting,
documentation and subsequent evaluation will be needed.
Emphasis during subsequent evaluation should be to discover
appropriate adaptations to the prevailing intercrop system,
rather than, as now, their potential in monoculture.
4. Equitable benefits from agrobiodiversity
A workshop in Ethiopia argued that crop genetic resources are
a cultural resource of the country of origin, and that some
kind of financial return was appropriate for germplasm passing
out of the national system.(75) One of our suggestions then
was that the country of origin could maintain a part interest
in varieties developed from its land races, and this
suggestion will be further developed here. It should be
clearly recognized that the Convention on Biological Diversity
and Agenda 21 may not be the most appropriate mechanisms for
establishing national interests over germplasm: a fresh start
on this topic is both needed and possible.
My doubts stem from the unusual definition of "Country of
origin of genetic resources", which according to Article 2 of
the convention means "the country which possesses those
genetic resources in in situ conditions." This excludes most
of the usable resources of agrobiodiversity, which are now in
ex situ collections away from countries of origin. The meaning
of "country of origin" should certainly be renegotiated to
include countries where ex situ germplasm samples were
originally collected, as this would allow the next, essential
step, of countries of origin maintaining an interest in
samples throughout the entire management process up to and
including subsequent utilization - whether this is in new
varieties or through biotechnology. It is only by establishing
a national financial interest in germplasm samples that a
sustainable national management of germplasm will be possible.
It is only by establishing a secure national management of
germplasm that national development can be promoted and the
past problems of international germplasm management be
overcome.
Common heritage, national heritage, and funding
Access to germplasm is of high strategic value to countries.
Some of the best examples are recorded from the United States,
both because of the effectiveness of the US germplasm system
in capturing benefits for national crop production, and
because the US is the most honest country in declaring its de-
pendence of foreign germplasm.
Collaborative research with Third World countries has
benefited U.S. agriculture in another important
way‘through infusion of yield-producing genetic materials
into the seeds of our cultivated crops . . . . For
example, semi-dwarf wheat varieties, the genes for which
came from Asia, occupy almost 60% of our wheat acreage .
. . . Strains resistant to southern corn leaf blight, corn
rust and maize dwarf mosaic virus resulted from
collaboration with scientists in developing countries . .
.(76)
The value of agrobiodiversity can be calculated. Cummings
and Dalrymple give several examples of the value to US
agriculture of access to genetic materials. Examples include
dwarfing genes for wheat, golden nematode resistance in
potatoes from Peru, rust resistance from Kenyan wheats, and
Korean soybean germplasm.(77) Soybean, introduced from East
Asia, provides an excellent example of the value of germplasm
introduction to the US.(78) Davies noted that: "the South
contributes over $500 million a year to the value of the U.S.
wheat crop alone . . ." USAID figures "indicate amounts
ranging from $176 million for rice genes to a staggering $1.8
billion for maize."(79)
The work of the IARCs, set up to benefit the agriculture of
developing countries, can also have spillover benefits for
developed countries.(80) Two-thirds of the value of wheat
improvement in Australia (US$75m p.a.) was attributed to
CIMMYT germplasm, with only one third of gains from the work
of Australian wheat breeders. Australian funding to CIMMYT
averaged US$340,000 p.a. over a ten-year period. CIMMYT-based
wheat varieties occupied 50 per cent of the wheat area in
Australia.(81)
The monetary value of germplasm which is supplied
internationally without cost becomes a direct public subsidy
to the agriculture of the recipient country, permitting a
lower price for commodity exports, and therefore increasing
their global competitiveness. Countries dependent on access
to foreign germplasm have characteristically argued for a
concept of "common heritage" for germplasm.(82) For example,
"genetic resources of the earth are common property for the
betterment of mankind."(83)
Perhaps the most significant idea in the convention is the
rejection of the concept of free access and common ownership
of biological diversity, and the introduction of the idea of
national sovereignty over germplasm. However, it is essential
for all countries that access be maintained to germplasm.
Calls for restriction on access, although increasingly
common,(84) are certainly not in the interests of developing
countries.
Insistence on free access has been a major feature of the
past management of genetic resources (within the FAO
Commission on Plant Genetic Resources, IBPGR, and the CGIAR).
While this is an admirable and necessary position, it produces
practical problems: "The failure to recognize that the
preservation of species is not a free public good, that
someone or something will have to bear the cost of such
preservation, has adversely affected preservation
efforts . . . "(85)
It is essential, in order to provide funding for future
agrobiodiversity conservation and utilization, that countries
receive some benefit from their management and supply of
agrobiodiversity.(86) But the terminology within the conven-
tion of "equitable sharing of benefits" and "mutually agreed
terms" is ill-defined and opens a great potential for abuse.
If countries and institutions go it alone on germplasm access
policy (as, for example, Turkey is doing on collecting policy,
China and Costa Rica on direct contracts to develop germplasm,
and India on restricting access to key germplasm) there is an
obvious danger of confusion and inefficiency as different
countries adopt different policies.
A strong justification for a sustainable funding mechanism
for national agricultural research is the continuing reduction
of funding by international donors for national agricultural
research in developing countries. For a variety of reasons,
including self-interest, donors now give preference to
"environmental" projects. This "reflects in part the success
of environmentalist pressure groups on aid donors, backed by
willing and effective media coverage."(87) In a damning
critique of the World Conservation Strategy, Adams identified
an issue that is crucial to our discussions: the attempt by
environmentalists to equate conservation with sustainable
development. My view of the determined attempts to promote
biodiversity conservation is simple. We can avoid the pitfalls
of untargeted, unsustainable, and irrelevant attempts at
conservation by concentrating on agrobiodiversity - that biodi-
versity of value to agriculture. We must closely involve
farmers as the principal conservers and users of this agro-
biodiversity.
Compensation of countries for national germplasm use
Establishing a mechanism to recompense countries for the use
of national germplasm is one suggestion of many possibilities
for stimulating the national conservation and utilization of
agrobiodiversity.
A practicable future approach under the concepts of the
UNCED Biological Diversity Convention could be to protect all
germplasm in future by setting up a "mimic" of plant breeders
rights over rights to land race and even wild germplasm - the
"International Registration of Germplasm" discussed here. This
would be almost directly opposite to the former concept of
free access to germplasm. This change of attitude is justified
by three separate developments:
* the recognition of national sovereignty over bioresources
by the UNCED Biological Diversity Convention
* recent changes in the UPOV Convention, establishing
"dependence" of one variety on another
* the increasingly strong position that developed countries
are taking by insisting on international recognition (for
example, through the GATT) of their rights to intellectual
property protection.
Under the system recommended here all germplasm would benefit
from protection: anyone using any germplasm for the
development of new varieties (but not for direct use as a
crop) would have to come to an agreement with the "owner" of
the germplasm (the national government for samples originating
from the country, wherever they now are located). Registration
of samples of agrobiodiversity could be done by nations under
an international agreement similar to that of the
International Union for the Protection of Varieties of Plants
(UPOV). A relatively small number of developing countries
could initiate the system. A global numbering system, with a
unique number for each collected sample, could include a
country code to indicate the origin of the sample.
This position is close to the UPOV's concept of "essentially
derived varieties": it is argued by UPOV that new varieties,
if "essentially derived" from existing protected varieties,
will need the agreement of, and, of course, payment to, the
proprietor of the existing variety in order to be
marketed.(88) Baltjes and Ghijsen point out that the UPOV
Convention of March, 1991 argues that a variety should be
deemed to be essentially derived from another (initial)
variety when it conforms to the initial variety in the
expression of essential characteristics that result from the
genotype, except for differences that result from the act of
derivation.(89) Derivation includes mutants, (somaclonal)
variants, backcrossings and transformation through genetic en-
gineering.
Baltjes and Ghijsen also note that the UPOV concept of
variety speaks of "the expression of characteristics resulting
from a given genotype or combination of genotypes."(90) Under
this definition, I suggest that nearly all improved varieties
are "essentially derived" from land races‘which in turn are
"varieties characterized by a combination of genotypes." The
need now is to extend the UPOV system of protection of
varieties to protect land races (and even wild species) in or-
der to generate funding when commercial varieties are derived
from land races and wild species. In the current absence of
protection for land races, UPOV have, of course, not needed
to consider any payments for varieties derived from land
races.
Powerful tools for varietal identification and
interpretation of genetic distance between varieties already
exist.(91) For example, a detailed RFLP (Restriction Fragment
Length Polymorphism) profile of a maize inbred or hybrid
comprising data from 100 probed sites that are well dispered
through the genome can be obtained and databased for US$250.
The introduction of a simple international system for
registering land race germplasm (and even wild relatives)
could could therefore be based on emerging technologies of
varietal recognition. Such a system could provide
internationally recognized protection, allow dependency to be
established, and generate sustainable funding for national
germplasm conservation and enhancement.
Registration would eventually be very much to the benefit
of all parties involved in the conservation and utilization
of agrobiodiversity. Priorities would be quickly and clearly
established on the value of germplasm to both developed and
developing countries. The result would be a considerable
technical improvement on the present chaotic system of
establishing priorities out of the self interest of the
richer, germplasm-poor countries, which leads to wasteful
"smash and grab collecting", inadequate quarantine and poor
evaluation.
Germplasm registration would place control over national
germplasm firmly in national hands and give some clear
financial benefits. Registration of land race germplasm could
be done by nations, with subsequent licensing being applied
only to improved, protected, varieties bred from the
registered germplasm. This would allow the free use of land
races directly anywhere - a necessary protection for small
farmers in other countries. However, any varieties (in effect,
all new varieties) using land races as a basis will need the
agreement of the proprietor (the national system) to be sold.
Extending the system to genes could allow entry into
international patenting systems. Rights would be established
by nominating samples of indigenous land race germplasm (and
wild relatives) in national or international collections. Use
of registered samples in plant breeding, or of varieties
developed from registered samples, would depend on royalty
negotiations. The aim would be to register all samples in
store. If germplasm is used without agreement‘and this could
be checked by increasingly sophisticated genetic
fingerprinting‘as with any attempt to ignore intellectual
property rights, legal sanctions would be in order. It is
worth emphasizing that this would be relatively simple given
present passport, characterization and evaluation documenta-
tion.
Property rights over land races following national
registration is a simple, logical extension to land races,
governments and farmers of the kind of property rights agreed
to, understood, and enjoyed by breeders. As we all know, the
inputs of generations of farmers in developing crops and land
races has been several orders of magnitude more important than
the work of breeders, who are now being exclusively rewarded
for some very mixed efforts in crop improvement.
The equity of a system of global registration is a difficult
one to dismiss - particularly as it would use the same arguments
that are now strenuously put forward by the plant breeders'
rights advocates. Arguments about "protecting investment" or
"stimulating research" apply with equal justification to
farmer management of land race germplasm (demonstrably highly
effective) with the additional argument that the essential
future maintenance, evaluation, and enhancement of germplasm
would be protected and stimulated if there were financial
returns to the nation and farming communities under any global
registration system (and this net could be cast exceedingly
wide). This (on-farm) maintenance and national involvement in
enhancement (literally very much enhancing the value of
national germplasm) is greatly preferable to the present
technological delusion that germplasm is now safely stored and
effectively used (a point of view now promoted more for
institutional viability than for the viability of germplasm).
There are some obvious and positive roles for the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in the international
registration of germplasm, as an international registration
authority. Other agencies (for example, FAO) could be involved
in providing a germplasm identification service through
genetic fingerprinting; in acting as an experienced broker in
negotiation; in policing any infringements; and in advising
national systems on the value of national germplasm and the
best ways to enhance and exploit this value. In addition to
developing international guidelines, model national guidelines
will be needed, to allow each country to enact legislation
to protect and benefit from its national germplasm.
If extended to useful plants and the wild relatives of
crops, germplasm registration and subsequent licensing would
provide sufficient funding under national control to give a
much-needed stimulus to national breeding and national ex situ
and in situ conservation. I have already made a special plea
for the greater involvement of farmers in maintaining and
developing resources of agrobiodiversity.
At a very minimum, suggestion of the introduction of a
global registration system could establish an excellent
bargaining position for future negotiations on international
funding for agrobiodiversity conservation. Given the deliber-
ate conceptual and technical parallels with existing Plant
Breeders' Rights legislation that could be built-in to any
system of international germplasm registration, there should
be little opposition from developed countries. Only 21
countries are at present members of UPOV: a similar or lower
number of developing countries could readily implement a
parallel system for land races and wild genetic resources. A
codification of rights and obligations through an
international system of germplasm registration could provide
a broadly acceptable solution to overcome much of the present
posturing and uncertainty over access to and use of
agrobiodiversity.
National enhancement of agrobiodiversity value
In addition to supplying unprocessed germplasm, and licensing
its future use, there is a more direct way of adding value to
national germplasm.(92) The international value of germplasm
could be increased by a programme of pre-breeding, if
necessary in collaboration with private sector breeders.(93)
This could generate funding for national programmes in
developing countries. It has recently been argued that:
. . . with a rapid increase in the size and sophistication
of private breeding companies in developed countries, and
with the growing interest in the largely unexplored
potential of wild germplasm, the demand for gene transfers
to more manageable resources has become more frequently
voiced. . . . Pre-breeding is an essential concomitant of
the utilization of exotic, and especially of wild
germplasm.(94)
As an example, there is now significant attention by many
countries and breeding institutes to the Triticeae (wild
relatives of wheat and barley) as sources of resistance to
potentially devastating diseases.(95) Breakdown of disease
resistance in wheat and continued access to germplasm
enhanced for disease resistance is of serious concern for
countries who are major wheat producers. By a process of
germplasm enhancement (or pre-breeding) resistance genes can
be backcrossed from wild relatives into suitable varieties
for crossing with commercial cultivars. This process, which
adds considerable value to germplasm for breeding in all
countries, is entirely suitable as a way of generating
funding by crop breeding programmes in developing countries.
Conclusions
I will leave the reader with a problem: where can sound
advice on these issues be obtained? Obvious sources are
international institutes: however, the Global Environmental
Facility (GEF) of UNEP, the World Bank and UNDP, is
specifically targeted at resources of global importance,
rather than of interest to developing countries; the World
Resources Institute (highly active in defining global con-
servation policy) is concerned with "the new generation of
globally important environmental and resource problems that
threaten the economic and environmental interests
of . . . industrialized countries and that have not been
addressed with authority in their laws."(96) Adams notes
that "Conservation is . . . dominated by global
concentrations of wealth and power, and centralized
decision-making. Despite the well-meaning rhetoric of
environmentalists advocating sustainable development, it is
not the Third World that stands to gain most from scientific
advances based on the exploitation of wild genetic
resources, but the industrialized economies of the
North."(97) Conservationists are already making attempts to
locate the 53-member Commission for Sustainable Development
at the conservationist campus in Gland, Switzerland.(98)
Conservation is a topic where we find strong differences
of interest between developed and developing countries.
Given the levels of funding proposed for bioconservation - and
estimates now run into the billions of dollars - and the past
history of inter-institutional conflicts, institutional
interests may predominate over national interests. The past
dependence of developing countries on outside funding and
advice has perhaps constrained key areas of biodiversity
policy formulation. Meetings such as this are an opportunity
to present to national policy-makers a range of options - for
funding and technical implementation - hopefully independent
of the vested interests of institutions.
It is thus important that the following needs be
addressed:
* to achieve a balance between the conservation of
biodiversity and agrobiodiversity by the more effective
targeting of useful biodiversity (I have suggested that
the objectives of developing countries should lie more
with agrobiodiversity conservation);
* to strengthen the national and international
conservation of agrobiodiversity by consolidating
present ex situ collections, and promoting the in-
volvement of traditional farmers in in situ
conservation;
* to make the national utilization of agrobiodiversity
more relevant to the needs of all farmers through
appropriate breeding and an enhanced programme of
varietal diversification through introduction;
* to promote an international system of germplasm
registration and licensing, with a view to using the
proceeds to stimulate national breeding, agricultural
development and agrobiodiversity conservation.
Notes
1. Bader, 1988.
2. Abramovitz, 1989.
3. Wood, 1988a.
4. Shüle, 1992.
5. Bennett, 1968.
6. Lenné and Wood, 1991.
7. Anikster and Noy-Meir, 1991.
8. Vavilov, 1951, p. 52.
9. Altieri, 1983.
10. Boster, 1985.
11. Brush, 1991.
12. Lanly, 1982.
13. Reidand Miller, 1989.
14. Harlan, 1981.
15. Bennett, 1968.
16. De Wet, 1981, pp. 88-89.
17. Clayton and Renvoize, 1986, p. 17.
18. Wood, 1993, with examples from tropical rainforest
ecosystems.
19. Parsons, 1975.
20. Wilkes, 1988; Benz et al., 1990.
21. IUCN, 1987.
22. Colonial Office, 1945.
23. Beckerman, 1992.
24. McNeely, 1989.
25. Bennett, 1971, p. 220.
26. Simmonds, 1979.
27. Delannay et al., 1983.
28. Chang, 1985.
29. National Plant Genetic Resources Board, 1979, p. viii.
30. National Plant Genetic Resources Board, 1979, p. viii.
31. TAC, 1989.
32. Brennan and Byerlee, 1991.
33. Heisey, 1990.
34. Simmonds, 1988.
35. Simmonds, 1979.
36. Lenné and Wood, 1991.
37. IBPGR, 1983.
38. Singh and Williams, 1984.
39. Heywood, 1992.
40. Smartt, 1990.
41. Bennett, 1968.
42. Plucknett et al., 1990.
43. Win and Win, 1990.
44. Cromwell, 1990, pp. 31, 50.
45. Carr, 1989, pp. 100‘103.
46. Smartt, 1990.
47. Ceccarelli et al., 1992.
48. Simmonds and Talbot, 1992.
49. Maurya et al., 1988.
50. Cromwell, 1990.
51. Richards, 1986, p. 140.
52. Carr, 1989.
53. TAC, 1989.
54. Voss, 1991.
55. Brush, 1977.
56. Buddenhagen, 1983.
57. Murty and Mengesha, 1989.
58. Srivastava and Damania, 1989.
59. Francis, 1989.
60. Pino and Strauss, 1987.
61. Wood, 1983.
62. CPRO-DLO, 1992.
63. Brush, 1986; Altieri et al., 1987.
64. Barnes-McConnell, 1987.
65. Rhoades, 1989, p. 6.
66. Lenné and Wood, 1991.
67. Pino and Strauss, 1987.
68. Lenné and Wood, 1991.
69. Council of Europe, 1991.
70. Wood, 1988a.
71. Parsons, 1970.
72. See King, 1987.
73. Shands, 1990.
74. Marshall, 1988, p. 115.
75. Neddenriep and Wood, 1983, p. 139.
76. Brady, 1985.
77. Cummings and Dalrymple, 1989.
78. Lockeretz, 1988.
79. Davies, 1991.
80. Brennan, 1989.
81. Downes, 1990, p. 8.
82. Noted by Wood, 1988b.
83. Anon., 1981.
84. Shiva, 1990.
85. Carlton, 1986, p. 261.
86. Wood, 1988b.
87. Adams, 1990, p. 2.
88. See Thiele-Wittig, 1992.
89. Baltjes and Ghijsen, 1992.
90. Baltjes and Ghijsen, 1992; Art. 1, revised 1991.
91. Smith, 1992.
92. Plucknett et al., 1990.
93. Smith and Duvick, 1989.
94. Frankel, 1989.
95. Reader and Miller, 1991.
96. Repetto, 1988.
97. Adams, 1990.
98. Anon., 1992.
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