Highlights and images for 4 April 2025

Amidst long lists of technical complexities and policy controversies, a potential pathway towards agreement appeared to emerge, observers remarked on the last day of the Working Group meeting. With only one meeting left before the Governing Body convenes in November 2025, others focused more on the need for intersessional technical and legal work, and regional consultations. 

It may be highly optimistic to detect an agreement taking shape after deliberations characterized largely by a reiteration of well-known positions and few new, let alone compromise, proposals. After all, regions continued to have divergent positions on fundamental issues, including the payment structure and rates, and benefit-sharing from digital sequence information (DSI) / genetic sequence data (GSD).  

As an illustration, during the adoption of the meeting’s report, a representative from the Latin America and the Caribbean region (GRULAC) preferred not to describe the discussion on payment rates as “fruitful.”  

On the payment structure, disagreement remains. Those supporting a subscription-only system for access to all crop genetic resources in the Treaty’s Multilateral System argue it is the only way to enhance monetary benefit-sharing in a predictable and timely way. Those preferring a dual mechanism for access, allowing users to choose between subscription and single access to specific genetic resources, highlight the need to attract commercial users by allowing a degree of flexibility.  

A compromise suggested by GRULAC outlined a potential way forward: by requiring a degree of advance payments in the single-access option, proponents of the subscription-only system may be more favorable towards the dual one. In addition to a CGIAR proposal for crop-specific subscriptions, it holds the promise of a system that is both flexible and efficient in terms of attracting user-based funding.  

As many participants noted during the meeting, discussions on the payment structure are tightly linked to those on payment rates. While rates were not discussed in quantitative terms, participants welcomed a blueprint for decision making put forward by the Southwest Pacific, which clarified the ladder according to which different rates should increase. 

Benefit-sharing from the use of DSI/GSD on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in the Multilateral System remains possibly the most controversial issue. As discussions continued, Africa reiterated the need to incorporate a benefit-sharing requirement from DSI/GSD use in the draft standard material transfer agreement. North America, for their part, opposed references to mandatory benefit-sharing payments from DSI use, illustrating the gap that needs to be bridged. 

A good amount of work needs to be done before the Working Group meets again in July 2025, in Lima, Peru, to clarify technical complexities and enable political compromises. This includes: a series of questions for the Standing Group of Legal Experts; a non-paper on exemptions from benefit-sharing payments under single access; a scenario note on rates and thresholds; and regional consultations to consolidate positions and enable flexibility to compromise during the next meeting.