As climate change increases, demand for new drought and flood resistant seed varieties is also rising.
The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is the world body responsible for overseeing the exchange of plant genetic resources for agriculture.
The meeting of the 136-nation pact will discuss expanding the list of plant species in the Treaty’s global gene pool and a subscription model for users of crop diversity to generate income for farmers conserving ancestral crops in the field. This will be in addition to the Treaty’s current benefit-sharing fund that has directly helped nearly half a million poor farmers.
The meeting will also tackle how to enact the Treaty’s obligation to set up a global crop information system to make it easier for plant breeders to identify and access genetic material for the development of new varieties.