14th Regular Session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA-14)

The food-biodiversity-agriculture nexus is often overlooked, despite biodiversity serving as the foundation of food security and nutrition. Sustainable food and agriculture (agrifood) systems are essential for the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This event explored mainstreaming food security and biodiversity considerations across all levels of participation—from farmers and communities to national, regional and global platforms.

Negotiations on enhancing the Multilateral System of access and benefit-sharing may have a breakthrough in sight: a new compromise proposal to establish a subscription mechanism with two alternative triggers for mandatory monetary benefit-sharing: early payment upon registration or deferred payment upon commercialization.

This event introduced participants to the Harmoniya Initiative, which will serve as a hub for work on agrifood systems during the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Harmoniya Initiative is a joint project of the COP 29 Presidency and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 

Delegates made progress towards enhancing the Multilateral System that provides facilitated access to a list of crops considered vital for food security, with the aim to increase benefit-sharing flows to the stewards of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, which are primarily farmers in developing countries.