GLIS Statement from Civil Society
October 6, 2015 - FAO (Green Room)
Nori and Fulya on behalf of Civil Society
Endorsing what has been previously said by farmers’ organisations, and appreciating
the wise comment of the representative form Iran speaking on behalf of his region, we
believe, as civil society, that the proposals for the Global Information System, including
DivSeek, although interesting, have inherent shortcomings.
Indeed, we first deeply regret that they have been and are being developed without
formal consultation, participation and technical expertise of both farmers and civil
society organisations actively working in this field. We think this is a fundamental error
that needs to be corrected before these initiatives are endorsed by the Governing Body.
We also would like to stress that the existing conventional information system for
genetic ressources is almost entirely inaccessible to farmers. This failure must be
corrected. There is an enormous cultural divide that makes it almost impossible for
farmers or their organisations to be in touch with international gene banks, and to have
their requests understood and addressed. Farmers should be considered the priority
users of any information system. They have donated approx. 2,1 million farmers
varieties to national and international gene banks. Within the 7000 crop species
included in gene bank collections, well over 6000 only have farmers as breeders. If
indeed the global aim of gene bank collections IS to assist farmers, we urge the
Governing Body to consider mechanisms that ensure farmers have access to gene banks
collections.
Furthermore, we have additional concerns specifically regarding DivSeek. As the
Secretary said yesterday, this initiative encourages and reinforces the dematerialization
of seeds. This trend, which is in our view not inescapable, has two serious implications
for the Treaty. Firstly, it ultimately leads to the devaluation of seeds and gene banks,
with the potential loss of both political and financial support of collections. Secondly,
now that it is possible to download genomes or gene sequences from open source
databases on the Internet, and recreate these sequences through gene synthesizing
machines, it is now possible to side-step benefit sharing provisions of both the IT and
the Nagoya Protocol to the CBD. These problems have now been recognsied by the CBD,
and should be addressed by the GB before the collaboration with DivSeek is approved.
We are also concerned that both DivSeek and the Genesis program actually make it
possible for private breeders to identify interesting material, and then source either the
digital DNA or the actual germplasm from non Contracting Parties. We are being told
that biosciences are changing faster than information technologies, and that the speed
and cost of sequencing are now five times greater than Moozla. This creates a false
confidence that we don’t need the seed, but just the sequence. We would like to point
out, as with the example of GMO, that a new technology does not have to be scientifically
successful in order to be commercially profitable. The breeding community is in danger
of pursuing new technologies at the expense of the seeds that are vital for all our futures.