International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture – ITPGRFA

The conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture are key to ensuring the world will produce enough food to feed its growing population in the future. To this end, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) began seven years of negotiations that resulted in the adoption of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) in 2001.

The treaty targets the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of their use, in harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity. The treaty establishes a Multilateral System for facilitated access to a specified list of PGRFA, including 35 crop genera and 29 forage species (contained in Annex I), and institutionalizes monetary and nonmonetary benefit-sharing from the use of these resources in the areas of commercialization, information exchange, technology transfer, and capacity building.