After a burst of mid-week color, courtesy of an Indian cultural interlude in the morning, delegates got straight back to work. Most of the day, plenary addressed items on cooperation with other international organizations and bodies. Delegates heard reports on activities and discussed draft resolutions, with many underscoring that institutional cooperation is necessary for achieving the objectives of food security, sustainable agriculture, and biodiversity conservation.
Want to dive deeper? Read the full Earth Negotiations Bulletin daily report.
Controversies arose with regard to cooperation with the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), due to potential conflicts between plant breeder rights and farmers’ rights, and proposals to reach out to the Human Rights Council, following the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants.
Throughout the day, plenary addressed:
- Conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA);
- Compliance;
- Cooperation with international instruments and organizations, including the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the Global Crop Diversity Trust, and the Convention on Biological Diversity; and
- FAO contribution to Treaty implementation.
The contact group on enhancing the Treaty’s Multilateral System (MLS) met in the evening to initiate discussions on a process forward.
Informal groups met to address:
- Farmers’ rights;
- Guardians of crop diversity; and
- The capacity-development strategy.
The budget committee met late at night.
A series of side-events were held throughout the day, focusing on, among others, farmers’ rights, genebanks, the seed sector, and open-source seeds.
All ENB photos are free to use with attribution. For the 9th Session of the ITPGRFA Governing Body, please use: Photo by IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis
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Plenary Session
Sougalo Soulama, Burkina Faso
Claver Ngaboyisonga, Rwanda
Roger Alberto Becerra Gallardo, Peru
Dan Leskien, CGRFA Secretariat
Simon Degelo, SWISSAID
Khadka Keshab Raj, International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty
Kim van Seeters, the Netherlands
Sabnam Shivakoti Aryal, Nepal
Gertrude Ngo Bahoya Mbom, Cameroon
Sunil Archak, India, with Yasmina El Bahloul, Chairperson, ITPGRFA GB 9
Francisco López, ITPGRFA Secretariat
Jens Weibull, Sweden
Kent Nnadozie, Secretary, ITPGRFA, with Álvaro Toledo, ITPGRFA Secretariat
Lianne Fernández Granda, Cuba
John Wasswa Mulumba, Uganda
Michelle Andriamahazo, Madagascar
Imke Thormann, Germany
Mariem Omrani, France
Halima Youssef Hassan, United Arab Emirates
Lhassane Sikaoui, International Olive Council
Yolanda Huerta, UPOV
Pierre du Plessis, African Union
Contact Group on Enhancing the MLS
View of the room during the contact group
Olivier Rukundo and Álvaro Toledo, ITPGRFA Secretariat
Axel Diederichsen, Canada
Co-facilitators François Pythoud, Switzerland, and Sunil Archak, India
Yoshiko Motoyama, Japan
César Tapia Bastidas, Ecuador
Between Sessions
Dan Leskien, CGRFA Secretariat, with Stefano Diulgheroff, FAO
Simon Degelo, Swissaid, with K.V. Prabhu, India
Cultural Events
