Document(s) 11 of 38

B.R. Ghildyal outlined a Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC)-funded rice diversity program recently launched in Asia. IRRl will work with national programs and NGOs toward the goal of long-term preservation of the rice germplasm gene pool. Three specific objectives were presented.

• Collection, ex situ conservation and preservation of wild and cultivated races;
• In situ, on-farm conservation of traditional rice varieties;
• Strengthening germplasm preservation by the National Agricultural Research Systems.

S. Halim of 'Sristi' spoke on the issue of compensation to farmers for their biodiversity efforts. The organization argues that "four kinds of compensation strategies can provide incentives to farmer individuals as well as to communities in the short and long-term for conserving diversity. These are: Material-Individual, Material Collective, Non-Material Individual, and Non-Material Collective.']

SPERLING: Dr. Ghildyal, in your beginning remarks you mentioned that this rice biodiversity program was a joint action of IRRI, national programs and NGOs. Your discussion of activities at the farm level focused on KVKs [the adaptive testing/demonstration units of the lndia's national testing system]. These KVKs have done important work in extending improved technologies: HYVS, fertilizers and pesticides. I was wondering if you could expand on the role that NGOs may play.

GHILDYAL: KVKs now have the responsibility of carrying on on-farm research for the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Some of the KVKs are run by NGOs and one of the best in the country is run by the Ramakrishna Mission. Other KVKs are run by agricultural universities and research institutions but, I must say, their work is not as good as that of the NGOs.

KVKs are in constant contact with farmers of their region and have training programs. I believe, with them, we can now initiate germplasm conservation.

RILEY: I would like to add that the project does have a steering committee which includes several countries in South Asia. The national representatives of Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as India, have all been specifically requested to identify appropriate NGOs to join this steering committee. We have gone farthest in Vietnam where, with the South East Asian Regional Institute for Community Education (SEARICE) and others there, NGOs have had some important discussions about specific activities. The Swiss have very strongly emphasized NGO involvement and it is very important.

KOTHARI: I want to connect the presentations of ICRISAT and I RRI, two of the many international agricultural research centers. There has been a lot of discussion about the fate of the existing germplasm collection, its commercial use, Intellectual Property Rights associated with it, and so on. What is the policy on the new collections being made? Are there Material Transfer Agreements with the people with whom it is being collected and from the countries from whom collections are taking place? I know there has been a great deal of internal debate within the system: where are you currently?

WELTZIEN: As far as I am aware, ICRISAT does not have a policy on these issues, mainly because they are in a high state of discussion and there is no consensus as yet. This is especially true with the recent transfer of holding of all genetic resources within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The implications of this transfer of responsibility are still being worked out. As for Material Transfer Agreements, as far as I am aware, there is no single CGIAR collection mission anywhere which takes place without the partnership of national institutions. All collection missions are collaborative between the national system and the international institution. So agreements would go along the rules of the country. As there are different countries involved, we are probably dealing with very different kinds of policies. There are country-specific policy issues which the CGIAR system will have to follow.

RILEY: Maybe I can add that IRRI has an Intellectual Property Rights Bulletin which does specify the kinds of Intellectual Property that they may or may not seek on various kinds of technology and germplasm.

In terms of the Material Transfer Agreement, under the new trusteeship mentioned, work is going ahead with a form of Material Transfer agreement which would be acceptable either to all Centers or to the individual Center. This has been formulated jointly with FAO. Certainly this is seen as a very important step which has to be recognized and needs to be taken forward.

BERG: I would like to make a comment on the issue of compensation. In my mind, the interest of local communities consists firstly in certain customary rights and, secondly, in compensation. If these two are reversed, if we go for compensation first, it might function, legally speaking, as a kind of sell-out and the community might lose their customary right to the traditional use of their germplasm. l think the first and the primary concern should be to legally enact the customary rights of communities. Their interest is to still have access to germplasm, to have the right to use their germplasm, reproduce it and manipulate it, breed it in their traditional ways and also exchange and sell it in non-commercial ways within the communities. But that right should not be limited to their own community germplasm but also to other germplasm. This is another form of compensation. Since they have allowed the flow of germplasm out of their communities, they should also have the right to receive a return flow of germplasm from the formal sector and to use it in customary ways. If these rights are not enacted as citizens' rights, they might all be lost. The loss of those rights could be reinforced and could be catalysed if we go for monetary compensation, which would be perceived by many as a sell-out.

HALIM: I want to say that compensation is basically for the people who have already helped or worked for the compensation of biodiversity. The first thing is that the individual persons who have done some relevant work and valuable work get the benefit of compensation. The public sector, at a later stage, might implement something, but you cannot wait until this whole issue settles. We want to initiate this first step so that the creativity of the person, innovative capacity of the person does not get lost; it must be motivated.

SPERLING: Just a question on this issue of individual recognition. Let's take the case of a single variety. It may have been bred by a number of people through hundreds of years. The people who select the seed may be different f rom those who maintain the soil fertility — which helps the seed to grow. And the people who ensure that the cows are well fed and give the dung — which goes to those who help maintain the soils — may be a still different group. So the question is how we might even conceive of individual compensation? And a related question. Might individual compensation clash with community compensation? You presented four options, but I sense that some of them might be at odds. I would hypothesize that individual compensation could destroy community systems.

HALIM: I will generally say that if landraces have been developed by a group of people, then we should go for the collective system. Let it be through the formation of trust funds. Apart from that, an individual's contribution to the conservation of biodiversity or germplasm might be compensated for by the Venture Capital Fund. In some of our programs, groups have been involved, but there was also a case where a singular contribution was very much there. We gave him a Venture Capital Fund. In some instances, we may have to combine some of our four models.

KOTHARI: I was just asking Vijayi what his reaction might be to something like this issue. Vijayi comes from a village where a lot of people have worked on developing, maintaining and enhancing crop diversity, but his own personal work is obviously of a special nature in the sense that he is trying out 110 varieties, which no other farmer has done. I was asking him whether he would want individual compensation or whether compensation should go back to the community. Second, whether he would want to obtain a patent on a new variety or not.

He has not yet given me a full answer, but his initial reaction was, as for patent, No. He feels even if it is a new variety there is so much history that has gone into it from the community that he does not feel he owns the seed.

SANTHAKUMAR: I would like to suggest that there may be different levels of involvement, for example, the traditional community and certain active members within the community. We might consider the possibility of unequal forms of compensation, that is, compensation at different levels.

MAZHAR: We are really talking about two different systems of rights: one is common property and one is the formalized privatized system based on recognizing the individual as the actor and the contributor of innovation. l don't think the two can be in any way balanced. How would you possibly enact common property within the formal system, the constitution, in legal statutes?

I will give an example. There is a clause in the biodiversity convention which says that the sovereignty over natural resources lies with the State. We again have to define what is the role of the State and what is the role of the community. ln countries like Bangladesh, the whole resource ends up with the bureaucrats and they are the ones who are going to sign the contract with Cargill and other companies.

GHILDYAL: When you consider compensation, you have to consider the process as well. There are two: one is the formal research and development (R&D) work and another is the informal R&D — which up to now has not been paid. Formal R&D is done by the government or private countries; both are paid, but differently. Now informaI R&D is for the survival of human beings, the community who lives there, and we have to find a way to compensate that.

OOSTERHOUT: I think this is an issue which farmers themselves need to decide upon and we need to go back to the farmers and put these points to them so they can know the implications. The main thing that farmers lack is knowledge about the outside world. If informed, they can really select what is important to them.

SATHEESH: l am interested in what Rajeev Khedkar thinks because he has done a lot of work on this. And we should also come back to V. Jardhari.

KHEDKAR: When we talk to tribal farmers about compensation, they say: "we do not want to get into this because we would be destroying the spirit in which we have been doing this work."

JARDHARI: [Editors' note: translated from Hindi] This whole issue of compensation, who is to compensate whom, that is the issue. lf you want to get into this track of compensation with individual farmers or the community, it is like passive smokers: they will start getting the same habits as the chain smokers — or, here, as the multinationals. Again, who is at what part of the hierarchy? If the farmers are to get compensation, who will compensate? lf they are working with an NGO, the NGO will move ahead and get the compensation from international donors. Or if it is the national government, the government may go to FAO and get the compensation. So it's a kind of rat race in compensation — very dangerous. The procedure of patenting is itself wrong. Seed has been evolved after an effort of thousands of years. This knowledge is not what we have earned. Rather, it is our duty to improve it. Seed belongs to the community, whether of the village or of the country.

Document(s) 11 of 38