Report On First Round Of Projects Of Seed Treaty Benefit-Sharing Fund

By Catherine Saez

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture published a report providing financial and technical information on the first project portfolio of its Benefit-sharing Fund.

The Report on the First Round of the Project Cycle of the Benefit-sharing Fund [pdf] states that “with its investment of just over half a million US dollars, the Benefit-sharing Fund contributed towards strengthening the capacities of more than 6,000 farmers. Farmers were trained in on-farm conservation, seed storage, plant variety selection and basic food processing and marketing.

The Benefit-sharing Fund, which is “multilaterally controlled by the Contracting Parties of the International Treaty,” invests “directly in high impact projects supporting farmers in developing countries conserve crop diversity in their fields and assisting farmers and breeders globally adapt crops,” the report says.

The first portfolio of the Benefit-sharing Fund consisted of 11 small-grand pilot projects implemented over a period of two years in four different regions of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Near East, according to the report.

The contributions to the first round of the project cycle came from contracting parties: Italy, Norway, Spain and Switzerland contributed over US $ 581 000.